Edward Dawson

DAWSON, EDWARD WILLIAM, who died at Idmiston, Wiltshire, on June 4, aged 75, was a cricketer who by sheer application and strict adherence to the basic principles of batting reached a higher place than many players of greater natural ability. In his last year at Eton, where he was in the XI in 1922 and 1923, he made 159 against Harrow. He had already made 113 v Winchester, the first boy to make a century in both matches in the same year, and he finished with an average of over 50. In both those seasons he had a few trials for Leicestershire. At Cambridge he won his Blue as a freshman and retained his place as an opening batsman throughout his four years, being captain in 1927.

His performances for Leicestershire showed him to be by now fully up to county standard, and coming down he took over the captaincy and held it in 1928, 1929, 1931 and 1933. He himself always paid a most generous tribute to the help and kindness he received from George Geary. He proved himself, as he had at Cambridge, an outstanding captain, besides being one of the county's most reliable bats. He played for the Gentlemen at Lord's in 1925 and 1927 and was a member of the MCC sides to South Africa in 1927-28 and to New Zealand in 1929-30. He also toured the West Indies with Sir Julien Cahn in 1929. In his first-class career he scored 12,597 runs with an average of 27.09, and made fourteen hundreds. His last innings for Leicestershire in 1934 was a faultless 91 against the Australians. He was a splendid field, especially on the off side.