A long long tale awinding

posted by John Winn

At Arthington yesterday conversation turned to Arthington Hall and the Sheepshanks family in whose possesion the hall has been since 1830. It was mentioned that a member of the family, Ernest Richard (Dick)Sheepshanks had played one match for Yorkshire, his only first class match and had been killed in the Spanish Civil War when acting as a war correspondent.
Dick was born in 1910 and was killed while reporting on the battle of Teruel for Reuter's on the last day of 1937 when a republican shell exploded in front of the car he was sharing with three other correspondents. What makes this tragic story remarkable is that there was one survivor, namely the communist spy Kim Philby. There was even a bizarre conspiracy theory put forward that Philby planted the bomb to kill Sheepshanks to prevent him blowing his cover.
Dick Sheepshanks' one first class match was in 1929 for Yorkshire against Cambridge University when batting after Mitchell, Oldroyd, Barber and Leyland he made 29.A nice coincidence is that Sheepshanks was in his first year at the university at the time but despite playing in the Freshers' match in '29 and the Seniors' match in '31 he never played for the university. This is surprising in that he certainly had the right pedigree having captained Eton successfully in 1928 when despite being over one hundred runs behind on first innings they fought back to win by 28 runs. The key partnership in Eton's second innings was between Sheepshanks and Ian Akers-Douglas who made 158. There is another somewhat ironic twist to this story in that Akers-Douglas too met a tragic end, killed by a shotgun accident at his home in Frant, near Tunbridge Wells in 1952. Like Sheepshanks, Akers- Douglas might have considered himself unlucky not to get his Oxford blue for he scored centuries in both the Seniors' and Freshers' matches.He was twelth man at Lords in 1930 and went on to play for Kent between 1932 and 1937.
Dick Sheepshanks' brother Charles also represented Eton at Lords, opening the batting in 1930. Dick had played as a fifteen year old at Lords in 1925 when he represented CF Tufnell's eleven against a Lord's XI. Carleton Fowell Tufnell (probably not related to Phil)had a typical upper class background for his time, including service in India and played seven first clas matches for Kent.Matches between Tufnell's teams and a Lord's eleven were an annual event at Lord's betweeen the wars. One of his sons, Neville played as wicketkeeper for England in a test at The Wanderers' ground in 1909 when Hobbs and Sutcliffe put on 212 for the first wicket. This was to be his only cap, one of nine England wicketkeepers who have achieved this distinction.
There is an excellent tribute to Dick Sheepshanks on Reuter's website, 'The Baron'. He is buried in the family vault at Arthington Churchyard, within shouting distance of a loud 'howzat'from the cricket ground.