Joseph Arthur Hulme (18 December 1877 – 3 October 1916) was an English

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who scored 12 goals from 29 appearances in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

playing for Lincoln City. He also played in the Southern League for Gravesend United,

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been ...

and

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

, and in the

Midland League The Midland Football League is an English football league that was founded in 2014 by the merger of the former Midland Alliance and Midland Combination. The league has four divisions that sit at levels 9–12 of the football pyramid. History T ...

for

Wellingborough Wellingborough ( ) is a large market and commuter town in the unitary authority area of North Northamptonshire in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England, 65 miles from London and from Northampton on the north side of the River Nen ...

. He began his career as an

inside right Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

, and in later years played at

right back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

. Hulme was killed in action in the First World War.

Biography

Hulme was born in

Leek, Staffordshire Leek is a market town and civil parish in the county of Staffordshire, England, on the River Churnet. It is situated about north east of Stoke-on-Trent. It is an ancient borough and was granted its royal charter in 1214. It is the administra ...

, and began his career in junior football in the local area, playing as an

inside forward Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

. He signed for Lincoln City in June 1897, and made his first-team debut on 4 September, the opening day of the

1897–98 Football League The 1897– 98 season was the tenth season of The Football League. Final league tables The tables below are reproduced here in the exact form that they can be found at thRec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundationwebsite and in ''Rothmans Book of Fo ...

season, in the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

match away at

Newton Heath Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883. Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial R ...

. Lincoln lost 5–0. He played regularly, scoring 13 goals from 31 appearances in all competitions, 12 from 29 in the League, but was released at the end of the season. Hulme and a Lincoln teammate, goalkeeper William Wilkinson, were two of numerous new signings for Gravesend United for the 1898–99 Southern League season. Neither was retained for the following campaign. The club's committee was keen to dispense with the services of "the men with drinking reputations, who proved such failures last season", though there is no indication that Hulme was one such. He played for

club

before returning to the Southern League with

in 1901–02. Hulme signed for

ahead of their second season in the Southern League. His profile in Carder and Harris's ''Albion A–Z'' describes him as highly influential in Brighton's successful campaign for promotion to the First Division, and, playing in defence, he missed only one match in their first campaign at the higher level. In 1904–05, he played more frequently for the reserves than for the first team, though he did replace the injured centre-half Micky Good for the high-profile

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

tie against his former club Bristol Rovers. Albion lost 2–1, and the winning Rovers players were presented with gold medals in honour of their victory. At the end of that season, Hulme was one of only three players retained by Albion. He was appointed captain, and contributed to their reaching the last 32 of the 1905–06 FA Cup, in which they lost to Football League First Division club

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

only after two replays; according to the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

'' match report, Hulme played splendidly. By 1907 he was again primarily a reserve, standing in when Arthur Archer was unavailable. In recognition of his five years' service to the club, he became the first Albion player to be awarded a

benefit match A benefit is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question. Howeve ...

. The chosen match was the Western League fixture against

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

, but the weather was extremely wet and the attendance was reported as "barely two thousand". He played only one first-team match in 1908–09, and retired at the end of the season, having scored 7 goals from 174 appearances for Albion in first-team competition. He then returned to his native Leek when he re-signed for Macclesfield. He later became trainer of local team Leek United, probably from the 1909–10 season as he only made two appearances for Macclesfield during that season having been almost ever-present during the 1908–09 season. Hulme enlisted in the

Royal Sussex Regiment The Royal Sussex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that was in existence from 1881 to 1966. The regiment was formed in 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment of Foot a ...

at the start of the First World War. He was serving as a corporal in the 7th Battalion at the time of his death in action in October 1916 at

Gueudecourt Gueudecourt () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History During the Battle of the Somme, the town of Gueudecourt had represented one of the most distant objectives for the British drive that opened on ...

, in the Somme department of France. He is commemorated on the

Thiepval Memorial The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the ...

and on the Nicholson War Memorial in Leek.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hulme, Arthur 1877 births 1916 deaths Sportspeople from Leek, Staffordshire English men's footballers Men's association football inside forwards Lincoln City F.C. players Gravesend United F.C. players Wellingborough Town F.C. players Bristol Rovers F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players English Football League players Southern Football League players Midland Football League players British military personnel killed in the Battle of the Somme Royal Sussex Regiment soldiers British Army personnel of World War I Military personnel from Staffordshire Footballers from Staffordshire