A parson named Parsons

 posted by John Winn

Whilst researching my last posting, the subject of which was the Warwickshire cricketer Percy Jeeves, I came across a photograph of a Warwickshire XI taken in 1914 which included the aforesaid Percy. Accompanying the list of players is the note that only five of them played for Warwickshire immediately after the war. Of those who did not appear as soon as cricket resumed it is perhaps surprising that only one, Jeeves, was a casualty of the war whereas Frank Foster was forced to retire following a motor cycle accident, Septimus Kinneir retired, Syd Santall became coach which leaves only the subject of this posting, Jack Parsons or to give him his full title Reverend Canon John Henry Parsons MC, born 1890, died 1981. *

Jack Parsons was a sufficiently distinguished cricketer to merit a short biography 'Cricketer Militant' by Gerald Howat published shortly before the subject's death and a half page obituary in the 1982 Wisden. Like so many others Jack answered the call in 1914 joining the Warwickshire Yeomanry but his war service took him not, like Jeeves, to France but to Gallipoli which unlike thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand troops, he survived. In July 1916 he was commissioned as Second Lt in the Worcestershire Yeomanry with whom he stayed until transferring to the Indian Army. In March 1919 he returned to England arriving in time to see his mother shortly before her death on May 26th. A week later he was approached by Warwickshire and having accepted their terms he turned out in their first home championship match since 1914 against Derbyshire on June 9th and 10th, a match they lost and in which our hero scored 5 and 0. Parsons soon discovered his old form however and in twelve innings hit over 500 runs at an average of just under 50. His last appearance of the summer was against  an Australian Services XI for in August army duties took him back to India where he played some cricket and got married. 

In June 1922 he was again offered terms by Warwickshire which he refused, but in 1923 he returned to England and picked up where he had left off four years earlier with a century in his second match v Northants at Edgbaston and once again he finished the season top of the averages. Parsons returned to regular cricket in 1924 and continued until 1934 when he was in his 44th year and twenty years after he had played for the Players at the Oval. His final appearance could not have been better for playing against Yorkshire at Scarborough, Warwickshire were bowled out for 45 but when set 216 to win JHP hit 94 including three sixes and twelve fours and only 12 were needed when he was out and the winning runs were hit by JH 'Danny' Mayer, a great Warwickshire servant whose obituary appears two pages before that of Parsons in Wisden.

Having been ordained in 1929 and from 1934 to 1940 Parsons enjoyed life as a country rector in Shropshire and later Cornwall with his wife, son and daughter but the outbreak of another world war saw saw him return to the army as chaplain which included overseas service in North Africa and Italy before returning to Liskeard in 1944. He died in a nursing home in Plymouth in February 1981. Parsons earned distinction as an army officer, he was awarded the Military Cross, and one wonders what his reputation as a cricketer might have been had he not lost ten years to army service. Let us leave the last word to Wisden 'By the time he resumed his career (1923), English batting was fast recovering, a younger generation, Hammond Leyland, Jardine, Chapman, was knocking at the door and his chance was gone.'

* the caption to the photo on page 74 of Jack Bannister's History of Warwickshire CCC contains an error for it omits any reference to EB Crockford. Crockford appeared in just one match in 1919, v Yorkshire at Edgbaston, a match Yorkshire won with ease and Crockford's contribution was modest. He achieved greater fame in 1920 when winning an Olympic gold medal for hockey.