Lancashire player number 9 - Swire, Samuel Henry by Don Ambrose

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Player:

SH Swire

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Lancashire 1865-68
Born 3.1.1839 Ashton-under-Lyne.
Died 29.12.1905 Southport.

 

The son of Samuel Swire, J.P., of Ashton-under-Lyne. He was educated privately and in Switzerland. Just over 5ft.10 inches tall and stated to weigh 12 stone, judging from portraits he must have put on wieght in his later years.

 

His earliest recorded match was for Sale against Ashton-under-Lyne in 1857, although later most of his club cricket was for Ashton-under-Lyne, where he played with the Rowley brothers and Edwin Whittaker. Also a member of the Manchester Club, where he had been Secretary since 1862, he attended the meeting at the Queen's Hotel, Manchester, in January 1864, at which the formation of the Lancashire County Cricket Club was agreed, and he was appointed, initially jointly with A.B.Rowley, the new club's first Secretary.

 

On 15th and 16th of June 1864 he played in the Lancashire Club's first ever match, against Birkenhead Park at Warrington. He scored 0 and 1, took a wicket and two catches.

 

The following year on 20th to 22nd June at Old Trafford he took part in Lancashire's initial first -class match against Middlesex, scoring 18 not out and 16.

 

In September 1867 playing for Gentlemen of Lancashire against Gentlemen of Yorkshire at York he scored 64 in his only innings.

 

The 1881 Census finds him resident at Portland House, Ashton-under-Lyne, aged 42, a cotton spinner, with his wife Hannah aged 42, son Samuel aged 20 an undergraduate of Christ Church, Oxford, and daughter Nellie E. aged 6. There are two domestic servants.

 

On Saturday evening, 24th November 1888 a dinner was held in his honour at the Queen's Hotel, Manchester and he was presented with a purse of £500 out of which a massive silver tray had been purchased, engraved with a view of the pavilion at Old Trafford. This tray now rests in the museum at Old Trafford cricket ground. He continued as Secretary until his death.

 

He was a Colliery Proprietor and cotton spinner, a director of the Wigan Coal & Iron Co.Ltd., and also a director of J.Bayley & Sons Ltd.

 

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Don Ambrose)