Fallen Cricketers Remembered

The London (East) Branch celebrated its tenth birthday earlier this year, with almost all of the decade spent resident at the Walthamstow Cricket Tennis & Squash Club, which welcomed us with open arms back in 2016 when our first home was bulldozed in a local authority redevelopment.

In an effort to repay the Club's hospitality, Chair Neil Pearce sought to look into its First World War history which was at that time, completely forgotten.

It turned out that the Club had a long history and military roots stretching back to the period of invasion fears when tensions with France were high in the 1850's, leading to a rapid expansion of the volunteer movement, in Walthamstow's case in turn leading to the formation of “B” Company of the 2nd Essex Volunteer Rifle Corps. The threat of invasion soon receded, but the volunteers remained, now with enough time on there hands to play an occasional game of cricket, with the earliest recorded game taking place 1862.

A separate cricket club eventually emerged from these scratch games and by 1910 the Club had settled into its current Bucks Walk ground.

Research carried out by Chris Hunt revealed that eleven Club members had lost their lives in the Great War, which initially made it a little surprising that there was no memorial at the ground, but this was eventually explained when old fixture lists turned up, with the names of the fallen printed on the back cover – a sort of living memorial.

Sadly, changes in the way things were done either side of the next war meant that this form of commemoration was lost, so the Branch decided to have a permanent memorial made and donated to the Club.

Thanks to a certain virus, the unveiling was somewhat delayed, but finally in September 2021 we were in a position to complete the work.

The little ceremony drew quite a sizeable crowd of Club and Branch members, with Club President Robert McKill accepting the gift on its behalf, and local lad and Branch Member Mark Smith (of Antiques Roadshow fame) doing the unveiling.

An information board inside the main hall gives some details of the men who appear on the memorial plaque, such as Sergeant Vincent Percy Bain of the London Rifle Brigade, whose poignant letters home to his family are in the keeping of the Imperial War Museum, and 2nd Lieutenant Harry Hayden Dongray of the MGC, whose parents donated an album of letters and memorabilia to the Waltham Forest Archives (his connection to the Club stretches on, as the Club bar is named the 'Dongray Lounge' in honour of his younger brother, who served the Club throughout his life and was its President for many years).