Charles Luther (soldier)
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Alan Charles Grenville Luther | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 17 September 1880 Kensington, London, England | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 23 June 1961 (aged 80) Staplemead, Curland, Somerset, England | ||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||
| 1908 | Sussex | ||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Source: Cricinfo, 3 January 2016 | |||||||||||||||
Alan Charles Grenville Luther MC (17 September 1880 – 23 June 1961) was an English soldier and cricketer.
Life and career
[edit]Educated at Rugby, where he appeared in the First XI in 1897 and 1898,[1] Luther did his military training at Sandhurst. He joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and fought in the Second Boer War.[2][3] He was promoted to the rank of captain. In August 1914, during the Battle of Le Cateau in the First World War, whilst lying wounded in no-man's-land, Luther was discovered by a German soldier who had lived in England before the war and appreciated the game of cricket; he took Luther to Le Cateau for treatment.[4] Luther remained a prisoner of war until 1918. In 1920, promoted to major, he was awarded the Military Cross for valour at Le Cateau.[2]
Luther played cricket at various levels until his late forties, mostly as a batsman, including nine first-class matches for Sussex in 1908 and eight for MCC from 1908 to 1911. His highest first-class score was 42, for MCC against Leicestershire in 1909.[5] He played Minor Counties cricket for Berkshire in 1926 and 1927, scoring 101 out of a team total of 194 against Hertfordshire in 1927.[6]
Luther retired from the army in the early 1920s.[2] After a few years farming in South Africa, he returned to England and served as secretary of Berkshire County Cricket Club and assistant secretary of Surrey.[1] At The Oval in the late 1920s, where he was a coach for Surrey, he organized the net sessions for young club members; Ronald Mason remembers him as "tall and willowy with a shock of grey hair on a handsome head that swayed engagingly as he walked".[7]
During World War II, Luther served with the Home Guard, based at Canonteign in Devon. After a few more years in South Africa after the war, he returned to live the rest of his life near Taunton in Somerset.[2]
Luther was also a prominent rackets player.[1] He married Cecily Noel, the sister of a fellow officer from the Yorkshire Light Infantry, in London in July 1921. They had one son.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Wisden 1962, p. 987.
- ^ a b c d e Michael Pulford, "Captain Luther", The Cricket Statistician, Autumn 2022, pp. 39–45.
- ^ "The Peerage: Person Page 29859". The Peerage. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
- ^ "Astronomical Odds Against", The Cricketer, Spring Annual, 1941, p. 10.
- ^ "MCC v Leicestershire 1909". CricketArchive. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
- ^ "Hertfordshire v Berkshire 1927". CricketArchive. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
- ^ Ronald Mason, Batsman's Paradise, Hollis & Carter, London, 1955, p. 80.
External links
[edit]- Charles Luther at ESPNcricinfo
- Alan Luther at CricketArchive
- 1880 births
- 1961 deaths
- Military personnel from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- British Home Guard soldiers
- Cricketers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- People from Kensington
- People educated at Rugby School
- English cricketers
- Sussex cricketers
- Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
- Berkshire cricketers
- Recipients of the Military Cross
- King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry officers
- British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
- British Army personnel of World War I