By Brian Sanderson,
I was at the West Yorkshire Archives looking at items in the Yorkshire Cricket collection and came across a newspaper article on Charles Augustus Ollivierre.He was born in Kingston Jamaica but buried in Robins Hoods Bay in 1949.
He was training to be a doctor in Kingston when a legacy from his father persuaded him to abandon his studies and concentrate on cricket.He came to this country in 1900 with the first West Indian touring side.He was top of the batting averages with 32.70 with a top score of 159. He and P.F.Warner,playing his only innings for the touring side , shared in a opening stand of 238 against Leicestershire.
He stayed in England and qualified for Derbyshire in 1902.That year he made 167 against Warwicshire but his most memorable innings occured in 1904 when he was the dominating figure in a remarkable match. Percy Perrin scored 343 not out in a total of 597 for Essex at Chesterfield in July.Ollivierre responded with 229 out of 548 and after an Essex collapse for 97 he hit 92 not out of 149.Because of eye trouble , he retired from first class cricket after 1907, but took part in Yorkshire club games.
He came to live in Pontefract and was a outstanding league cricketer and also as a fine player of tennis and hockey.
It was cricket which brought him to Robin Hood,s Bay in the first place. In 1927 he came as a member of a side based on the Malt Shovel Inn in Pontefract to play matches against Fylingdale and Whitby and made immediate impression that in subsequent years,he was invited to turn out for the Witby club in their fixtures during the Cricket Week Another subject to research.
By the early 1930,s although his playing days were over ,he made so many friends in the Bay that he continued to visit the place as often as he could.He came on long holidays and weekends at Christmas and Easter as well as summer. So strong did his attachment to the village that when he was taken ill during the flu epidemic of 1949, he asked to be buried in Robin Hood,s Bay.
I notice to-day that Chanderpaul has signed a two year contract with Derbyshire. I wonder if he knows in who,s footsteps he is following ?
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Charles was a goof friend of Ida and Charles Goody and always stayed with them at the Fylingdales Inn in Fylingthorpe, Nr Robin Hoods Bay when in the area. The Goody's erected the tombstone after he died.
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