Gillingham Frank Rev. Image 1 Essex 1906

Description

Tokyo, Japan born Frank Gillingham was educated at Dulwich College, where he gained a place in the Dulwich XI’s of 1891 and 1892 and Durham University. Ordained in 1899, he became a curate at Leyton and so qualified for Essex. During this period he showed his love of the game when making his rounds of the parish by joining in street cricket with local boys.

After a few appearances for the second eleven, he first played for the Essex Championship side in 1903, and he appeared whenever his clerical duties permitted until 1928. Tall and powerfully built, he was a strong believer in hitting the ball hard in front of the wicket, and, though the first to admit that he was not at ease against spin, he dealt firmly with bowlers of pace. His best season for the County was in 1908, when he scored 1,033 runs at an average 39.73, and hit four centuries; his highest innings was 201 against Middlesex at Lord’s in 1904.

He appeared three times for The Gentlemen against The Players, and in 1919 played a considerable role in the defeat – their first – by an innings and 133 runs of the Australian Imperial Forces XI at the hands of the Gentlemen of England at Lord’s. Gillingham scored 83 and made four catches. He was also a member of the Essex eleven who, in 1905 at Leyton, beat Joe Darling’s Australians by 19 runs, and he went on tour to Jamaica with the Hon. L.H. Tennyson’s team in 1927.

As Sir Pelham Warner wrote of him in The Cricketer: “Gillingham was a man with a charming individuality who exerted a powerful and beneficial influence over people of various types and characteristics. He was a very human being, kind, gentle and understanding, who was the last to condemn. No one ever came to him in trouble without going away comforted. His friends and admirers were numerous indeed.”

Described as “a mighty batsman of renown” and “a tower of strength to his County”, his first class career between 1903 and 1928 spanned 210 matches and his runs aggregate totalled 10,050 at an average of 30.64 with 19 career centuries. He also took 111 catches and stumped one player as a stand-in wicket-keeper.

He served as an army chaplain with the 2nd Battalion The South Wales Borderers at Tidworth from 1905 to 1907 and again as Temporary Chaplain to the Forces during the First World War.

Frank Gillingham’s other claim to fame is that he was the BBC’s first ball-by-ball radio commentator. At Leyton on May 14th, 1927 he broadcast four stints, totaling 25 minutes, on the Essex v New Zealanders match. Picked largely because he was a former County cricketer who was “a terrific preacher” according to T.N. Pearce, a former team-mate, he was not really suited to the confines of the BBC. The newspapers greeted the experiment with indifference. Gillingham continued to do the odd commentary until he infuriated Lord Reith, the BBC’s overlord and a stickler for a complete absence of anything commercial, when he filled in time during a rain break at The Oval by reading the various advertisements round the ground.

NB the image comes from Vanity Fair in 1906, published under the title “Cricketing Christianity”.