George Bennett (12 February 1829 – 16 August 1886), sometimes known as Farmer Bennett, was an English professional

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er, 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 of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

from 1853 to 1873. He was mainly associated with

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ken ...

, and made more than 150 appearances in first-class matches.George Bennett

CricInfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

. Retrieved 26 March 2017.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 53–57.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 6 August 2022.)

Life and career

Bennett was born in Shorne Ridgeway near

Gravesend, Kent Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Roche ...

, where he was employed as a bricklayerMonumental Inscriptions of St Peter & St Paul Church, Shorne - recorded by D. E. Williams 2013
Kent Archaeological Society. Retrieved 26 March 2017. and for 25 years at Cobham Hall by John Bligh, 6th Earl of Darnley as a cricket coach for his sons, including

Edward Edward is an English male name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortunate; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-S ...

and Ivo both of whom went on to play for Kent. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm slow roundarm bowler who played in 126 matches for Kent. He played for several of the representative travelling teams including the United All-England Eleven (1860–1862);

All-England Eleven In English cricket since the first half of the 18th century, various ''ad hoc'' teams have been formed for short-term purposes which have been called England (or sometimes "All-England"; i.e., in the sense of "the rest of England") to play against ...

(1864) and the United South of England Eleven (1872). He represented the Players in 1865 and 1866. He was described by Lord Harris in 1907 in the ''History of Kent County Cricket'' as "one of the best all rounders Kent has produced". Bennett took part in the first English tour of Australia as a member of HH Stephenson's XI in Australia in 1861–62. The team travelled to Australia on the ''

SS Great Britain SS ''Great Britain'' is a museum ship and former passenger steamship that was advanced for her time. The largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1853, she was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great Western ...

''. During the voyage, while the team was practising on deck, one passenger received a broken nose and cut cheek when he was struck in the face by a belaying pin which Bennett was using as an improvised cricket bat. In the only first-class match on the tour, playing for "The World" against a "Surrey XI" at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Lis ...

in March 1862, Bennett took seven wickets in each innings and made 72 in the first innings. He was the first player to be ever given out

handled the ball Handled the ball was formerly one of the methods of dismissing a batter in the sport of cricket, but was integrated into the Law on obstructing the field when the Laws of Cricket were rewritten in 2017. It dictated that either batter can be gi ...

. In a match for Kent against

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

at the

County Cricket Ground, Hove The County Cricket Ground, known for sponsorship reasons as The 1st Central County Ground, is a cricket venue in Hove, in the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The County Ground is the home of Sussex County Cricket Club, where m ...

, in August 1872, he removed a ball that had become lodged in his clothing, and was given out before he had scored a run.

Notes

References

Sources

Arthur Haygarth Arthur Haygarth (4 August 1825 – 1 May 1903) was a noted English amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club and Sussex between 1844 and 1861, as wel ...

, ''Scores & Biographies'', several volumes, Lillywhite, 1862–72 * ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'', several volumes to 1874

External links

* 1829 births 1886 deaths People from Shorne English cricketers English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 Kent cricketers North of the Thames v South of the Thames cricketers Players cricketers Players of the South cricketers North v South cricketers All-England Eleven cricketers United South of England Eleven cricketers Cricketers from Kent {{England-cricket-bio-stub