Bill Roe (cricketer)

Bill Roe

Bill Roe circa 1899
Personal information
Full name	William Nichols Roe
Born	(1861-03-21)21 March 1861 Closworth, Somerset, England
Died	11 October 1937(1937-10-11) (aged 76) Marylebone, London, England
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm off break / medium
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1879–99	Somerset
1880–83	Cambridge University
First-class debut	10 May 1880 Cambridge University v England XI
Last First-class	22 May 1899 Somerset v Middlesex
Career statistics
Competition First-class Matches 83 Runs scored 2,690 Batting average 20.22 100s/50s 4/7 Top score 132 Balls bowled 2,208 Wickets 32 Bowling average 31.40 5 wickets in innings 0 10 wickets in match 0 Best bowling 3/17 Catches/stumpings 35/–
Source: CricketArchive, 13 October 2010

William Nichols "Bill" Roe (21 March 1861 – 11 October 1937) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Somerset County Cricket Club and Cambridge University in the late 19th century. He achieved notability in 1881, when he made the highest score in cricket at the time. A right-handed batsman who could play aggressively, but with a sound defensive method, Roe was considered one of Somerset's leading batsmen of the era. He played without merit for Cambridge, and only achieved his Blue during his final year at the university.

Roe gained cricketing fame in the summer of 1881, when he was drafted into the Emmanuel College Long Vacation Club cricket team for their match against a similar team from Gonville and Caius. After Caius had scored 100 runs, Roe batted for the rest of the game to reach 415 runs, just passing the previous total of 404 by Edward Tylecote. The match was reported across the contemporary press, though it was stressed that the quality of the opposition bowling was weak. Roe's first-class career never reached the heights it might have done; he was generally an inconsistent scorer, and scored just four hundreds in first-class cricket. His struggles were mirrored by his county side, Somerset, who flitted between first- and second-class cricket during his career. He played for the county from 1879 until 1899, and scored 2,690 runs in all first-class matches.

William Nichols Roe was born on 21 March 1861 in Closworth, near Yeovil, in south Somerset. He attended the Clergy Orphan School in Canterbury before being admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1879. He graduated from Cambridge with a BA in 1883, and took a position as an schoolmaster at Elstree School, in Hertfordshire, from 1883 to 1900. He left Elstree in 1901 to set up Stanmore Park preparatory school with former England Test cricketer Vernon Royle. In 1892 he married Zoe Susanna Charlotte Jennings Crew Crew, and the pair had a son, also named William Nichols Roe, in 1898. Roe (senior) died on 11 October 1937, aged 76, in a nursing home in Marylebone, London following an operation.