Admiral Sir George Hamilton D'Oyly Lyon, KCB (3 October 1883 – 19 August 1947) was a distinguished

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

officer as well as an English sportsman who played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

and represented the England national rugby union team.

Naval career

Educated at Bruton School and at the

Royal Naval College, Dartmouth Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ci ...

, Lyon joined the Navy on 15 June 1899, and saw active service at the Battle of Jutland, aboard HMS ''Monarch''.Sir George Hamilton D'Oyly Lyon
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives He was appointed Head of the British Naval Mission to

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

in 1929 and Commodore Commanding, Home Fleet Destroyers in 1932. He then became Rear Admiral commanding the 3rd Cruiser Squadron in 1935 and Commander-in-Chief, Africa in 1938 (the Africa Station became the

South Atlantic Station The Commander-in-Chief South Atlantic was an operational commander of the Royal Navy from 1939. The South American area was added to his responsibilities in 1960, and the post disestablished in 1967. Immediately before the outbreak of the Sec ...

in 1939). He served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Commander-in-Chief, The Nore The Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Nore Station or Nore Command. The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the T ...

from 1941 and retired in 1943.

Sporting career

Lyon, in four first-class cricket matches, made 185 runs at 26.42 and took 7 wickets at 20.00. A right-arm medium pace bowler and right-handed batsman, he played twice for

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

in the 1907 County Championship. On debut, his only significant contribution was dismissing Worcestershire opener Harry Foster while in the other match for Hampshire, he claimed the wicket of Ernest Killick, of Sussex, after Lyon made his then highest score of 29. Capped twice for England at rugby union, Lyon was a full-back and made his Test debut at Inverleith, in a loss to Scotland during the

1908 Home Nations Championship The 1908 Home Nations Championship was the twenty-sixth series of the rugby union Home Nations Championship. Six matches were played between 18 January and 21 March. It was contested by England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Although not officia ...

. When he appeared in his second and final Test the following year, it was as captain and against Australia at Blackheath. England once again lost the fixture but were awarding no less than nine players their first Test caps. His return to first-class cricket in 1911 was much more successful, with an appearance for an Army and Navy cricket team against the Oxford and Cambridge Universities team at Portsmouth. Despite batting down the order at nine, Lyon was the top scorer for the Army and Navy in their first innings, with 90. He then managed career best figures of 4/51 and one of those,

Ronald Lagden Ronald Owen Lagden (21 November 1889 – 1 March 1915) was an English sportsman who played first-class cricket for Oxford University Cricket Club, Oxford University and represented England at rugby union. Early life and family Lagden was born ...

, was also an English rugby union international. Lyon's final first-class match came eleven years later when he lined up for the

against the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

at Lord's. He contributed scores of 22 and 32 but couldn't stop the Army winning by 9 wickets.

Family

His son, Patrick Maxwell Lyon, was a second lieutenant in the

Middlesex Regiment The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1966. The regiment was formed, as the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in 1881 as part of the Childers R ...

. He was killed in the Belgian campaign of May 1940.

References

External links

Cricinfo: George Lyon
, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyon, George 1883 births 1947 deaths English rugby union players England international rugby union players English cricketers Hampshire cricketers Royal Navy cricketers Royal Navy admirals of World War II Royal Navy officers of World War I Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Grand Crosses of the Order of Aviz Army and Navy cricketers United Services players Military personnel of British India Rugby union fullbacks