Edward Henty (cricketer)

Edward Henty (11 August 1839 – 20 January 1900) was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent County Cricket Club as a professional between 1865 and 1881.^[1] He was born in Hawkhurst, Kent and died at Lewisham, London.

Henty was a right-handed batsman and a wicketkeeper. He was a professional at the Prince's Cricket Ground in the 1870s and also ran billiard halls in what is now south-east London.^[2] His obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1901 quoted Arthur Haygarth's view that he was "above the average" as a batsman, though inclined to be too "steady".^[3] But he mostly batted in the lower order and his career average was less than eight runs per innings.^[1] Almost all of his first-class cricket was for Kent: 116 out of 119 first-class games. He did not appear in the important representative matches such as Gentlemen v Players, though he did play single games for the "Players of the South", the "United South of England Eleven" and for the Single in the 1871 Married v Single game, which was counted as first-class.^[1] At the end of his playing career in 1881, Henty was granted a benefit match by Kent, in which a 13-strong team from Kent played an 11-strong "England" eleven in the first game of the Canterbury Cricket Week, with newspaper reports indicating an attendance of more than 4,000 people.^[4] The report in the Evening Standard stated that Henty was "known as a well-conducted and thoroughly deserving professional".^[4]

Henty became a cricket umpire, standing in a few important games such as Gentlemen v Players in the 1870s, and then more regularly in county matches across the 1880s and up to 1894.^[1]

References