Gallery Two

This is all on the right hand side of the gallery whilst on the left sideis an exhibition on Ted Dexter featuring a painting of Ted painted by Andrew Festing, and based on the pose of Ted in Fester’s ‘Conversation Piece’ commissioned by the MCC’s museum. ‘Conversation Piece’ shows some of the England players who helped England to dominate world cricket in the 1950s. In many ways Ted Dexter is the odd one out as he played most of his Test cricket in the 1960s but as he played with many of the great players of the 1950s it was decided to include him. This painting was the first of four such ‘Conversation Pieces’.

In the centre of the wall on the left hand side is a painting of Aubrey Smith who played one test for England and was captain, after which he became a famous Hollywood star. There is a cabinet of exhibits that belonged to Smith in Gallery Three.

Information and exhibits on the Sussex players and officials who lost their lives in the two World Wars can be found on the right hand side as you enter Gallery Two. There was no county cricket between 1914 and 1918 and at least 219 players served in the First World War. George Cox was about to have a benefit match as war was declared on 4 August 1914, but the match against Surrey was cancelled and not played until 1920.

In the Second World War, there was no more cricket following Sussex’s game against Yorkshire which ended the day Germany attacked Poland. There were then no more county games at Hove until 1946. There was however plenty of cricket at Hove during the war but with many cricketers joining the armed forces, they represented service sides, including a match between the South of England and  the Australians in which the South consisted mainly of Sussex players, including James Langridge, with Keith Miller playing for Australia. Elsewhere there was cricket following VE Day but there were no competitive championship games. There were five ‘Victory’ tests between England and Australia, but they were deemed unofficial tests. Three Sussex players died during  the war: Kenneth Scott, John Boughey and Alexander Shaw, and countless others served in the armed forces around the world.

A number of Sussex CCC members were decorated as a result of their war service and there is an exhibition ‘Decorated for Bravery’ on these players who include Billy Griffith and Hugh Bartlett. The players and officials who died are remembered in the alcove to the right and on the wall just outside the alcove. They are:

Francis Oddie was the club secretary  who joined the 2^nd Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. At the time of his death on 23 October 1916 he was attached to the 2^nd Battalion, Royal Berkshires. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of Transloy on the Somme front. Oddie came from North Lodge, Horsham where his parents, Arthur and Hilda lived with his wife, Lilian.

Arthur Lang was born in Bombay on October 25 1890, and educated at Harrow, where he was captain of the school side in 1908 and 1909 and played for the Public Schools against MCC at Lords. He played for Sussex thirteen times between 1911 and 1913, and also Cambridge for whom he was awarded a Blue. In his 22 First Class matches he scored 830 runs with top scores of 141 against Somerset and 104 against Cambridge University, both in 1903. He was also an excellent wicketkeeper. During WW1, Lang was a Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards. He died in France at Cuinchy around  January 26, 1915 following a German attack on British positions.

Kenneth Woodroffe was one of three brothers who fell in WW1. He was born in Lewes on December 9, 1892, and played for Sussex as a fast bowler twice in 1914. He had a first class batting average of 172 runs at 8.19 and 55 wickets at 27.2. Mr F.B. Wilson said of him in Wisden that ‘’He is really fast and can make the ball turn from the off on nearly any wicket. His action is a high and easy one, and being tall he often makes the ball get up very quickly.’’ In one of his two matches (against Surrey) he almost won the match by taking 6/43.

At the time of his death Woodroffe was attached to the Welsh Regiment, having previously been in the 6th Battalion, Rifle Brigade. He died at Neuve Chappelle in May 1915 shortly after the abandonment of the battle of Neuve Chappelle during which so many shells we expended that it led to a shell crisis. His brother Sidney was awarded the VC and another brother was also killed.

Geoffrey Dowling, was born in Melbourne, Australia, August 12 1891, and educated at Charterhouse before  playing for Sussex four times between 1911 and 1913 scoring 123 runs at 15.3. During the war he was a Captain in the Royal Rifle Corps when his unit was sent to Hooge, just east of Ypres. In early 1915 the Second Battle of Ypres raged around Hooge, a little village on a ridge located near a chateau which became a major target for both sides. On 30 July German forces attacked Hooge. The area had been quite quiet the night before until at 3.15am jets of fire began to explode around the stables near the Chateau, the first flame thrower attack of the war. The British lines were overrun and the men retreated to the support trenches. A second flame thrower attack was repulsed but the Germans managed to consolidate their captured positions. Dowling  was killed the same day  and the same place as 2^nd Lieutenant Sidney C. Woodroffe, brother of Kenneth.

Bernard Holloway was born in Wandsworth on January 13, 1888, educated at The Leys, played lacrosse for England then played eight matches for Sussex between 1911 and 1914. Altogether he played 19 first class matches including a MCC tour to the West Indies in 1910-1911. He scored 701 runs at 22.6 including a century v British Guiana at Georgetown. Holloway also played rugby and lacrosse for Cambridge, and lacrosse for England.

During the war Holloway was a Captain in the Royal Sussex Regiment that fought in the biggest attack the British army made in 1915, at Loos on the Western Front where the British used poison gas for the first time. The Royal Sussex Regiment 2^nd Battalion was a part of the 2^nd Brigade, 1^st Division. The battalion had made a frontal attack which was repulsed by the Germans with heavy loss of life for the Sussex men, especially amongst the officers. Also on the Loos front that day John Kipling son of Rudyard was to lose his life in his first attack.

George Lumley Whatford was born in Eastbourne on July 20, 1878,was educated at Harrow  and played for Sussex twice in 1904 scoring 21 runs at 10.5. During the war he was a Captain in the 66^th Punjabis which was dispatched to Mesopotamia in 1915 and took part in the Battle of Shaiba where a  Turkish counter attack was repulsed. In October it  was part of the 6^th Indian Division which advanced towards Baghdad and fought in the Battle of Ctesiphon which took place in November 1915 and where presumably Whatford died. He is commemorated on the Basra memorial and the Eastbourne War Memorial.

Charles Dennis Fisher was born in Blatchington, Sussex in 1877, the ninth of eleven children of Herbert Fisher and his wife Mary Louisa. He was educated in Westminster School after which to entered Christ Church college Oxford in 1896 gaining a BA in 1900 and an MA in 1903. He served as Senior Censor from 1910 to 1914, described as one of Oxford’s “most prominent members of its educational staff’.

He enjoyed walking and went on several tours of Italy during which he hoped to improve his understanding of Tacitus some of whose works he had edited.

Fisher played for Sussex between 1898 and 1903, and also represented Oxford in 1899 and 1900. For Sussex he  scored 429 runs at 13,4, took seven catches and eight wickets at 30.2. He was a righthanded batsman who bowled right arm medium pace and off break.

In his Wisden obituary, Fisher was described as 6 ft. 3in. in height and “a safe and steady batsman”. He was a consistent bowler who could maintain a good length in his deliveries. At Westminster, he was in the school’s first eleven for the four years 1893 to 1896 and captain in the last three. He obtained his Blue at Oxford in 1900 and played in the University Match that year.

At the beginning of the war Fisher learnt to drive and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served on the Western Front as an orderly and interpreter. He then retrained to join the Royal Navy in 1915, joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant. He was serving aboard HMS Invincible during the Battle of Jutland when a magazine explosion led to her sinking.

HMS Invincible was built as a battlecruiser in 1907, the first of her type anywhere in the world. During WW1 Invincible fought in the Battle of Heligoland , albeit in a minor role as by then she was getting old but in the Battle of the Falklands, Invincible and her sister ship, Inflexible sank the cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. During the Battle of Jutland, Invincible was part of a scouting force for the Grand Fleet when a magazine explosion ripped the ship apart on 31 May 1916 and she was sunk with the loss of 1026 lives. Charles was 38 when he died and he is commemorated on the Portsmouth memorial on Southsea Common.

John William Washington Nason was born in Tewkesbury on August 4 1889, the son of Dr and Mrs Nason. He was educated at University School, Hastings and Cambridge, gaining his Blue in 1909. He played 22 times for Sussex between 1906 and 1910. He was said to have a lot of promise that was never fully realised. His first appearance for Sussex was when in the game against Warwickshire at Hastings in 1906 the Warwickshire captain allowed Nason to replace Dwyer who had hurt his finger so badly whilst trying to take a catch that he could not continue.

At the time of his death, he was serving as a Captain in the 46^th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, having formerly been in the 14^th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in January 1916 and became a Flight Commander shortly before he died in the Vlamertinghe area. He was buried alongside a colleague, Lt Claude A Felix Brown who died the same day, in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery. Perhaps they were flying together?

Ernest Relf was born in Sandhurst in 1888, the brother of Albert and Robert. He played twelve times for Sussex between 1912 and 1914 making 232 runs at an average of 11.6 and took eight wickets at 26.5. During the war he was a gunner in the 337^th Siege Battery, Royal Artillery. He died in Evington, Leicester on July 27, 1918. There was a large military hospital in Evington and I can only presume that he was wounded during active service and was brought to Evington, where he did not recover. He was buried in Reading Cemetery.