Mason Jack Image 1 Kent 1910

Description

Blackheath, Kent born right handed batsman and right-arm fast medium bowler Jack Mason was a prolific batsman at Winchester College, averaging 48 and 55 in his final two years at the school. He scored 147 and 71 and took eight wickets in one match against Eton College in 1892. He was described by Wisden in 1898, the year he was named as one of its Cricketers of the Year, as “beyond all question the finest batsman turned out in our time by Winchester College.”

Mason went on to play as an amateur for Kent County Cricket Club, making his debut in 1893 after leaving school in a County Championship match against Sussex at Foxgrove Road, Beckenham in July. Despite a lacklustre second season, he became a stalwart performer for the County and gave “splendid all-round service”. He played regularly for Kent between 1894 and 1902, scoring over 1,000 runs each season from 1895.

With a height of over six feet, Mason generally played forward when batting, driving cleanly and powerfully. His Wisden obituary describes his batting style as “so straight a bat that he was always worth watching”. He was equally at home on slow, turning wickets and he averaged 33.27 in first class cricket, recording 34 centuries and 86 half centuries. Mason was also an accomplished fast-medium paced bowler taking 10 wickets in a match nine times and bowling 35 five wicket innings, and additionally he was considered an excellent slip fielder.

He took over the Kent captaincy in 1898 from Frank Marchant, a year in which Mason was chosen as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack considered him to be “one of the finest amateur all-rounders to play for Kent”.  He held the Kent captaincy for five seasons until his career as a solicitor took precedence, although he captained the side on the field during the final month of the 1909 season when Kent won the County Championship.

Mason toured Australia in 1897-98 as part of the England cricket team’s tour under the captaincy of A.E. Stoddart. He played in all five Test matches, his only appearances for the England team. Mason performed well at the start of the tour but endured “a long spell of bad luck” and did not live up to expectations. He averaged 12.90 batting and took two wickets in the Test matches, although he scored a century for the side in a first class match against Victoria in Melbourne and averaged 39.33 with the bat in first class matches on the tour. Mason’s letters written during the tour later formed the basis of Test of Time, a book about the tour written by Mason’s grandson John Lazenby.

Mason played in the four Kent County Championship winning sides of the years leading up to the First World War and played his final match for the County in 1914. He made one first class appearance after the War, for LG Robinson’s XI against the Australian Imperial Force Touring XI in 1919 at Old Buckenham Hall in Norfolk. In total he played 300 times for Kent, scoring over 15,000 runs and taking 769 wickets. His highest score of 183 came against Somerset at Blackheath while, in 1899, he posted an unbeaten 181 against Nottinghamshire in an unbroken partnership of 321 with Alec Hearne. This partnership, which was the highest in the County’s history until 1934, remained a Kent record for the third wicket which stood until 2005. As of February 2018 it remains the sixth highest partnership in Kent’s history for any wicket. He scored three successive centuries in 1904 against Yorkshire, Somerset and Essex and appeared 11 times for The Gentlemen against The Players.

After the 1902 season Mason’s father told him he was no longer prepared to pay for his son’s cricket career, and that it was time he joined the family firm. Mason played less often thereafter, but was still offered the captaincy of the English team to tour South Africa in 1905-06. He declined, and Pelham Warner captained the team.

Despite being over the age for compulsory military service at the start of the First World War, Mason volunteered in 1917 for service in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the Hydrophone Service and posted first to HMS Tarlair, the service’s main research and training base at Aberdour in Fife. He was posted to one of the Hydrophone shore stations at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight and, in 1918, promoted to Lieutenant. He volunteered to serve in the Royal Air Force in April 1918 but was considered too important to be spared by the Hydrophone Service which was playing a crucial role in combatting German U-boat attacks. He was demobilised in January 1919.

His father, Richard, had played for Worcestershire before the county gained first class cricket status. His brothers, James and Charles, both played some first class cricket and three other brothers were also “devoted to the game”, all playing for Beckenham Cricket Club.

NB in the photograph Mason (centre), watched by Surrey captain Morice Bird, shakes the hand of Surrey groundsman Samuel Apted on the occasion of the long serving groundsman’s benefit match in the Surrey v Kent match at The Oval in August 1910, which raised over £1,400. Apted had been Surrey’s groundsman since 1888, and had himself been a useful all round cricketer having played for Surrey Colts in 1867, and having been recorded as taking 17 wickets in a match in club cricket.

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