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 Woolley in about 1912 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Frank Edward Woolley | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1887-05-27)27 May 1887 Tonbridge, Kent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 18 October 1978(1978-10-18) (aged 91) Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 3[1] in (1.91 m) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Left-armmedium Slow left-arm orthodox | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | All-rounder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relations | Claud Woolley (brother) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut (cap 163) | 9 August 1909 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 22 August 1934 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1906–1938 | Kent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:CricInfo,28 December 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professionalcricketer who played forKent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and represented theEngland cricket team. A genuineall-rounder, Woolley was a left-handedbatsman and a left-armbowler. He was also an outstanding close-in fielder and remains the only non-wicket-keeper to have taken more than 1,000 catches in a first-class career. His aggregate of runs scored is the second-highest in first-class cricket history, while total number of wickets places him 27th overall.
Woolley played 64Test matches for England between 1909 and 1934 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of the sport. He was named aWisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1911 and was inducted into theICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.
Woolley was born inTonbridge,Kent, in 1887, the youngest of four brothers.[9][10] His father, Charles Woolley, owned a bicycle workshop on the town's High Street; the family lived above the workshop and it was here that Woolley was born. Charles later combined this business with a dyeing operation inherited from his father, although he had originally trained as an engineer at a railway works inAshford, where he met and married his wife, Louise Lewis, the daughter of the work's owner.[7]
The family business was located close to theAngel Ground, the home of Tonbridge Cricket Club and a venue used annually byKent County Cricket Club for festival matches.[11] In 1899, the ground became the base for the Tonbridge Nursery, a training centre established to develop young professional cricketers for Kent.[12] Players trained at the Nursery formed the core of Kent's fourCounty Championship winning teams during the early years of Woolley’s career.[13][14]
Woolley developed an interested in cricket at an early age.[15] He played informally with his brothers behind his father's workshop and watched matches at the Angel Ground from a tree overlooking the field.[16][17] He was also a keenassociation footballer, playing for Tonbridge and later signing forTunbridge Wells Rangers F.C. in 1906.[18]
By the time Woolley reached his teenage years, his father's business, by then developed into a motor vehicle garage, was prospering, allowing Woolley the opportunity to attend the fee-payingTonbridge School.[16] His cricketing ability, however, had attracted attention. He assisted as a fielder during practice matches at the Angel Ground,[18] and was later invited to play in a match to make up numbers byTom Pawley, Kent's manager.[16] Woolley did not regard himself as academically inclined and declined a place at Tonbridge School, instead leaving formal education at the age of 14.[16]
In 1903, Woolley was formally engaged as a young professional by Kent and trained full-time at the Tonbridge Nursery underWilliam McCanlis during the cricket season.[9][18] His brotherClaud joined the Nursery around the same time.[c][21]
Woolley quickly impressed McCanlis and the other Nursery coaches.[15] In 1905, he made his Kent Second XI debut againstSurrey Second XI atThe Oval.[16] As Nursery professionals were made available to clubs upon request,[22] Woolley played for a variety of teams during the season, scoring 960 runs and taking 115 wickets.[16]
He was coached and mentored byColin Blythe, a Kent professional based in Tonbridge who bowled slow left-arm spin, the same style later adopted by Woolley.[23] Blythe, who had been Woolley's childhood hero,[17] appears to have influenced Woolley’s bowling action. Woolley approached the wicket with his bowling arm held behind his back; his biographerIan Peebles later observed that the principle difference between the two bowlers was that Woolley delivered the ball from his hip, rather than from under the armpit, as Blythe's had done.[15][24]
After a single Second XI appearance in May 1906, a match in which he played alongside his brother Claud,[25] Woolley was selected for Kent's First XI for the County Championship match againstLancashire atOld Trafford, replacing Blythe who had injured his hand while fielding.[23] Woolley’sfirst-class debut proved challenging: he was dismissed for aduck from the third ball he faced, droppedJohnny Tyldesley three times, who went on to score 295not out, and took only just one wicket in Lancashire's first innings.[10][16][26]
In Kent's second innings, however, Woolley scored 64 runs, and he retained his place in the team for most of the remainder of the season. He missed only the matches played duringCanterbury Cricket Week, a major social event at which amateur players were more likely to be available for selection.[26]
Woolley recorded his firstfive-wicket haul in his second match, againstSomerset atGravesend,[16] before producing a notable all-round performance against Surrey at The Oval in his third appearance. In that match he took eight wickets, including 5 for 80 in Surrey's second innings, and scored 72 and 26 not out, performances that secured victory for Kent and established his reputation as a player of considerable promise.[15] He followed this with his first first-classcentury in the next match, played at the Angel Ground,[17] and by the end of the season he had been awarded hiscounty cap[18] as Kent won their first County Championship title.[10]
Writing after the end of the 1906 season,Wisden said that "Good as he already is, Woolley will no doubt... go far ahead of his first season's doings. It is quite possible he will be the best left-handed bat in England."[27] He had played 16 matches, scored 779 runs and took 42 wickets.[28][29] It was to be the only time he did not score at least 1,000 runs in a season in his career.[29] Woolley achieved the feat 28 times, equallingWG Grace's record. He scored more than 2,000 runs 12 times and in 1928 scored 3,352;[10] in every season other than 1919 he scored at least 1,000 runs for Kent.[d][31] His total of 58,959 runs[a] is the second highest of all time in first-class matches, beaten only byJack Hobbs,[10] and his 145 centuries is seventh on the all-time list.[32]
As a bowler, Woolley was most effective before a knee injury in 1924–25.[26] He took a total of 2,066 wickets[a] and achieved thecricketer's double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season eight times.[29][33] He took 132 five-wicket hauls and took 10 wickets in a match 28 times.[8] His 1,018 catches[e] as a fielder are the most taken by any non wicket-keeper.[f][7][32]
Woolley played 64Test matches for England between 1909 and 1934 and did not miss a Test match for the team between 1909 and 1926.[26] He scored 3,283 Test runs at an average of 36.07 and made five Test centuries. He took 83 wickets and 64 catches for the team.[7] He was aWisden Cricketer of the Year in 1911[15][33] and was the first winner of theWalter Lawrence Trophy for the fastest hundred scored in England in 1934.[6][36]
In total Woolley played in 978 first-class matches, including a record 764 for Kent, in a career which lasted until 1938.[5][29] He holds the Kent records for most career runs, centuries and catches and for total runs in a single season and is fifth on the county's list of all-time wicket takers.[37] He retired aged 51, scoring 1,590 runs in his final season.[29][38] He was inducted into theFederation of International Cricketers' Associations Hall of Fame in 2000[39] and made an inaugural member of theICC Cricket Hall of Fame when it was established in 2009.[40][41]
Writing forBarclay's World of Cricket,Harry Altham described Woolley as a "tall and graceful" figure who, with "a quiet air" was "unhurried in his movements".[42] As a batsman, he had a gift for timing his shots and made full use of his long reach; he was especially strong in driving off his back foot against balls that other batsmen might consider good length deliveries. He was equally graceful as a bowler, making full use of his height to extract additional bounce from his deliveries. Altham pointed out that, although Woolley lacked the subtlety ofWilfred Rhodes, he was nevertheless a formidable bowler on any pitch whose conditions helped him.[42] Woolley's long reach and his "large, prehensile hands" made him an excellent fielder close to the wicket.[42]Neville Cardus described him as "the most stylish professional batsman in the country"[43] and wrote that no other cricketer alive "had served the meadow game as happily and faithfully as Woolley",[44] whilst in his obituary inThe Daily Telegraph,EW Swanton described him as "as graceful a batsman as ever played".[45]
According toR. C. Robertson-Glasgow "when you wrote about him, there weren't enough words. In describing a great innings by Woolley, and few of them were not great in artistry, you had to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first over of his innings, perhaps, there had been an exquisite off-drive, followed by a perfect cut, then an effortless leg-glide. In the second over the same sort of thing happened; and your superlatives had already gone. The best thing to do was to presume that your readers knew how Frank Woolley batted and use no adjectives at all."[46] He went on: "there was all summer in a stroke by Woolley, and he batted as it is sometimes shown in dreams."[47] In hisWisden obituary, R. L. Arrowsmith wrote "his average rate of scoring has been exceeded only byJessop and equalled byTrumper. His philosophy was to dominate the bowler. 'When I am batting,' he said, 'I am the attack'."[48]
After the outbreak ofWorld War I in August 1914, the English cricket season continued, although public interest declined and the social aspects of the game were reduced.[49] Woolley married in September 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war. His three brothers all joined theKent Fortress Royal Engineers in 1914,[g] but when Woolley attempted to join them he failed his medical examination.[h][31] Instead, he went to work in his father's workshop, which had been converted to the manufacture of munitions.[52]
Woolley was subsequently recruited byJack Hobbs, who was also employed in the munitions industry, to play for Keighley in theBradford Cricket League.[53] He also made several appearances in exhibition matches, including scoring a century for a Lancashire team against Yorkshire in 1916.[31][52]
Later in 1916, Woolley was accepted for service with theRoyal Naval Air Service (RNAS). He began training in November and was posted toDover in March 1917, where he was attached to a motor boat section.[31] He was promoted to aircraftman first class and in February 1918 was transferred toFelixstowe, serving as thecoxswain of a rescue launch.[32]
In April 1918, the RNAS merged with theRoyal Flying Corps to form theRoyal Air Force (RAF), and Woolley was transferred to the new service. He was posted toNorth Queensferry, Scotland, where he worked under Admiral SirJohn de Robeck. A keen cricketer, Robeck attached Woolley to his flagship,HMSKing George V.[32]
Robeck arranged a number of cricket matches, including games held at the home ofLord Rosebery, a former captain of Surrey. During the summer of 1918, Woolley played in several additional exhibition matches, including appearances for England against a Dominions XI and for teams organised byPlum Warner.[6][32][52]
Woolley was transferred to the RAF Reserve in January 1919 and was formally discharged in 1920.[32] In 1922, he played a single first-class match for theRoyal Air Force cricket team.[6]
Woolley married Sybil Fordham, the daughter of a veterinary surgeon fromAshford, in 1914. The couple had three children: one son and two daughters.[52] Prior to his retirement from professional cricket, Woolley purchased a bungalow inHildenborough, on land sufficiently large to allow him to establish a cricket school. He coached cricket atThe King's School, Canterbury, but following the outbreak of theSecond World War the school was evacuated toCornwall. Woolley subsequently moved toCliftonville, where he joined theLocal Defence Volunteers.[54]
Woolley’s only son, Richard, was killed was serving as a merchant seaman onboardSSBeaverford duringConvoy HX 84 in November 1940.[50][54] The family home in Cliftonville was later destroyed during a bombing raid in 1941.[55]
During the war, Woolley took part in a number of exhibition matches intended to entertain the public and raise morale.[56][57] After the war, he moved toTunbridge Wells, where he continued to coach at The King's School for a further ten years. In the easy 950s, he also spent a summer coaching cricket atButlin's holiday camp.[55] Woolley played twice for Old England teams,[6] was elected a life member of both Kent Cricket Club and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC),[48] and served on the Kent General Committee between 1950 and 1961.[55]
Following Sybil Woolley’s death in 1962,[10] Woolley moved toLongwick,Buckinghamshire to live with one of his daughters.[55] He remained active in later like, regularly attending matches at theSt Lawrence Ground duringCanterbury Cricket Week,[26] and in January 1971 travelled to Australia to watch the final two Tests matches of the1970–71 Ashes series.[48]
Later in 1971, Woolley married Martha Wilson Morse, an American widow, and the couple settled in the Canadian province ofNova Scotia.[48][50] Woolley died in 1978 at their home inChester, Nova Scotia aged 91. A memorial service was held atCanterbury Cathedral, and his ashes were scattered at the St Lawrence Ground.[10][55]
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