posted by John Winn
Back in July and just before cricket began its short season I wrote a piece about Charles Absolom whose death in 1889 as the result of an accident was recorded in the following year's Wisden. This mercurial character was the first man to be dismissed for obstructing the field, and after a career in English cricket which included one test match, first class cricket for Cambridge University, and his native Kent, he 'disappeared' to the USA. The accident that killed Charles after ten years travelling in North and Central America occurred on the dockside at Port of Spain when a crane loading sugar cane or bananas, accounts vary, collapsed and crushed him to death. Readers with good memories may by now be tut tutting exasperated that they have read all this before. If so I apologise, perhaps I should have prefaced this article with a 'new readers start here' warning.
Recent reading has however has by chance thrown a little more light on Charles, this time in the official history of Essex, co-written by David Lemmon and Mike Marshall. I say new light although the several references to Absolom's career serve largely to reinforce what I wrote about him before, namely that he was an outstanding all round sportsman and an exciting cricketer. Some sources make no reference to his appearances for Essex, they were not first class, but he played for the county club in the 1870s. The official history describes Charles as 'a cricketer (who) always played for his side and never for himself, a philosophy he carried into other walks of life.'
Playing in a match v MCC at Lord's in 1872 the Essex county team included 'that very clever head-bowler (sic) and hard hitter Mr C Absolom,. Essex had a decisive win by nine wickets Charles scoring 26 batting at 7 then 5 when sent in first in the second innings. Using his clever head he took three wickets in the match. Another interesting match is recorded in 1874 between Gentlemen of The South and Players of The South at The Oval. The Players were bowled out for 77, our man Charlie 5 for 31 off 30 overs. The Gentlemen replied 280, WG 150 and second time around CA took another five, this time for 82 as the Players were dismissed for 163. Absolom bowled 39 overs in this innings and WG 38.3, so they must have bowled in tandem for long spells. Dr Grace's three wickets included his 500th first class wicket. A week later Charles played in the real thing, Gents v Players, again at The Oval but with no great success. It is interesting that whilst playing in matches for the Essex club Charles was also playing for Kent, a career he began in 1864 until he played his last first class match at Trent Bridge in 1879. It would be nice to say he went out on a high note, alas 0 and 1 with the bat and did not bowl says otherwise. Ten years later his life ended under 'a misplaced load of sugar' (or bananas) at Port of Spain.
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