A Star Studded family

 posted by John Winn

Rain interfered seriously with cricket both locally and nationally over the weekend. League cricket in my part of the world had already got off to a bad start with the postponement of the entire NYSD opening programme on the traditional third Saturday in April and the almost complete washout of the Nidderdale league. Things were little better this week and my local side, Ouseburn CC saw both first and second eleven games on Saturday abandoned early in the day without a ball being bowled, indeed the first XI who were given the doubtful privilege of starting with two away games on their return to the First Division, have yet to bat or bowl. 

I spent much of yesterday, which was actually quite a nice day in the Lower Ure Valley, switching between commentaries and live feeds on county championship matches but even here rain had the upper hand. Yorkshire, Durham and Gloucestershire will all feel they were robbed of victory by the weather and Kent v Essex at Canterbury was a total washout on the last day. At Taunton, in spite of Anthony Gibson's rain dance, Somerset's middle order put up enough resistance to deny Lancashire a first victory but it was the action from Lord's that engaged my attention to the last, once that is I had stopped laughing at the news that Spurs' supporters had been filmed leaving St James's Park after 20 minutes. 

In the match at Lord's Notts bravely opened up the game with a declaration that invited Middlesex to go for a target which they duly did and succeeded with just a few balls to spare. This in spite of Notts' efforts to ensure a draw by some dubious tactics towards the end. The championship tables show that only Hants can claim two wins so far and are already sixteen points ahead of Lancs who have drawn all three. Durham top Division Two, despite only one win from three and much credit must go their batters who have already accumulated 12 bonus points. 

It is just possible that by now some of you are wondering if there is any link between what I have written so far and the title of the posting. The answer is no but given the lack of cricket to watch on Saturday I have fallen back on a subject I have been meaning to write about for a few weeks, namely the Studd brothers, a cricketing family of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and here they are, from left to right, Kynaston, Charles, and George.

Their father Edward Studd, who fathered eleven children in all, was born in Bombay and made his fortune in indigo manufacture, a fortune big enough for him to own Stratton Hall in Northamptonshire, Hallaton Hall in Leicestershire and Bedworth House in Wiltshire at various times. All three boys went to Eton, all captained the XI and all three went on to win blues at Cambridge. Kynaston (1858-1944), played occasionally for Middlesex and in 1928 became Lord Mayor of London and shortly afterwards President of MCC. Moving on to George (1859-1945) , the second of the three, he followed  Kynaston in going to and captaining Eton then got his blue at Cambridge and was more than a useful tennis player. 

Finally we come to Charles (1860-1931) who followed the same education and cricket careers as his older brothers but went a significant step further for in 1882 he and George were part of Bligh's team that went to Australia and brought back the Ashes. George's form was disappointing but Charles was one of the best all-round cricketers of his time and played five tests in all.

Meanwhile back in Wiltshire the boys' father became, in 1878, a born-again Christian and shortly afterwards all three embraced Christianity. I recently acquired a biography of Charles written by his son-in-law, Norman Grubb, but only two chapters are devoted to cricket, it is very much a story of his work as a missionary. Charles went to China in 1885 where he remained for ten years but illness brought him back to England from where he went to USA and then to the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, this very much against medical advice. In Wisden's words this was an 'uncivilised region' but CT devoted the rest of his life to missionary work there until his death in 1931 from untreated gallstones. George too became a missionary and did much of his work in the slums of Los Angeles (sic). 

I should just mention that there were four other Studd brothers, all good enough to play for Eton and MCC. Star-studded indeed.