Hugh Rotherham

Hugh Rotherham

Hugh Rotherham, c. 1895
Personal information
Full name	Hugh Rotherham
Born	(1861-03-16)16 March 1861 Coventry, Warwickshire, England
Died	24 February 1939(1939-02-24) (aged 77) Coventry
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm fast (round-arm)
Role	Bowler
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1884–1903	Warwickshire
First-class debut	10 May 1880 An England XI v Cambridge University
Last First-class	10 July 1903 Warwickshire v Philadelphians
Career statistics
Competition First-class Matches 23 Runs scored 179 Batting average 7.16 100s/50s –/– Top score 33 Balls bowled 4377 Wickets 101 Bowling average 19.87 5 wickets in innings 8 10 wickets in match 2 Best bowling 8/57 Catches/stumpings 21/–
Source: CricketArchive, 25 June 2015

Hugh Rotherham (16 March 1861 – 24 February 1939) was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for a wide variety of amateur teams between 1880 and 1903, including the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the Gentlemen, and a single first-class match for Warwickshire. He was born and died at Coventry.

Rotherham's father was the Coventry watch manufacturer John Rotherham and he was educated at Uppingham School where he was captain of the cricket team in 1879. Not going to university, he joined his father's company and in the first half of the 1880s played a lot of cricket as a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm fast bowler who bowled in the round-arm style.

Rotherham's first first-class match was for an "England XI" against Cambridge University and he took seven wickets in the match. Three weeks later, playing for a "Gentlemen of England" side against Oxford he did even better, taking six for 34 and four for 65 to finish with match figures of 10 for 99. That led to his selection for the showpiece Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's, where he took eight wickets as the Gentlemen recorded a rare victory. He played only minor cricket in 1881, but returned in 1882 and again played in some of the bigger fixtures of the year, including the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval.

In the 1883 season, Rotherham was one of the principal participants in the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval which ended sensationally in a tie. In the Players' first innings, he took six wickets for 41 runs and, when the Gentlemen had been set 150 to win the match, he joined A. P. Lucas, who had opened the innings, with nine wickets down for 136, just 14 short; the pair added 13, of which Rotherham scored 11, but Rotherham was then bowled by Edmund Peate with the scores level.