On the 30 July 1889, the amateur cricketer, Charles Alfred Absolom, died aged 43 in an accident when cargo was being loaded onto a ship at Port of Spain in Trinidad. 

Born at Blackheath, Kent in 1846, Absolom played cricket for Cambridge University, Kent CCC and England, from 1866-1879.

Educated in Calne, Wiltshire, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Nicknamed the ‘Cambridge Navvy’, a reference to his size and strength, he won Blues in cricket and athletics at Cambridge before graduating in 1870. In 18 matches for the university he took over 100 wickets and played in the Varsity Match in each year between 1866 and 1869. He played in several games for the Gentlemen against the Players and in 1868 started playing for Kent CCC. After Cambridge he enrolled at Inner Temple but did not complete his law studies.[1]

In 1868, whilst playing for Cambridge, Absolom became the first batsman in first-class cricket to be given out obstructing the field, when a ball being returned to the wicket came into contact with his bat whilst he was attempting to complete a seventh run. [Remind you of anything similar recently ?].

Absolom toured Australia with Lord Harris’s team in 1878-1879 and played in the only Test Match of the tour. He was selected by Harris, his county captain, for the tour, although at 32 both his batting and his bowling ability were declining. After Australia’s Fred Spofforth had taken a hat-trick and helped reduce England to 26 for 7, Absolom came in and made 52 runs from ninth in the batting order, adding 63 runs with Harris for the eighth wicket.

He did not play another Test match, and completed his career with Kent at the end of the 1879 season, He played in 57 matches and took 87 wickets.

Absolom left England in 1880 to travel. He spent time in the Americas and became a ship’s purser on the SS Orinoco and the SS Muriel. Little more was heard of him for the remainder of his life. 

30 July, 2019

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