Sporting War and Sporting Peace 1914-1919 - Ups and Downs of Hutchings

Following on from his pieces earlier this month, Peter Bloor continues his series by focusing on the cricketing career of Kent player Kenneth Hutchings.

Brilliant amateur to disappointment

Reviewing Kent’s 1912 season L.B.W. of the Kentish Express wrote of Kenneth Hutchings that “This brilliant amateur of a few seasons back is one of cricket’s disappointments” but also expressed the hope that “next year may find him himself again.” L.B.W. would be disappointed still further when there was no “next year”, Kenneth’s attention having turned from cricket to his business career. The “At the Wicket” columnist of The Globe also had cause to be disappointed by Kenneth as, over the course of his cricket career, he justified only sporadically the writer’s prediction of 1903 that, after 454 runs and a forceful 106 versus Somerset, he ‘may this season have started on a brilliant career.’

“Brilliant century by K.L. Hutchings”

The 1906 season seemed to prove that judgement sound as Kent won their first County Championship. Kenneth scored 1,358 runs, the most for the county, and four centuries, including 131 (and 50 not out) against Yorkshire at Sheffield, where George Hirst was seen to have retreated 3 or 4 yards deeper than usual while fielding at mid-off, such was the power of Kenneth’s driving - when gently teased about this Hirst quietly replied that “I stood quite near enough to this young gentleman.”

Much praise followed for Kenneth, who was described as “the sensation of this season” and “a bat of superlative hitting powers” whose “inclusion in the eleven turned them from a match-saving into a match-winning side.” Even more impressed, the cricket columnist of The Referee went further and compared Kenneth’s speed of scoring and power on hard pitches to that of Victor Trumper, the Australian batsman then considered the best in the world.

Batting “with the radiance of a planet”

Kenneth again scored the most runs, 1251, in 1909 when Kent won their second Championship, this time scoring three centuries. His 155 against Somerset featured the characteristically powerful driving that so delighted the Canterbury crowd when he scored 63 against Hampshire, also the opposition when Kenneth ended the season “scoring fast and furious as usual” with a dashing 116.

But “there were times when he found it extremely difficult to score…”

Kenneth’s form was however rather patchy in Kent’s Championship-winning season of 1910. His two innings in Dover Week failed to produce a run for example, but there were still enough signs of the familiar Hutchings in his 1222 runs and late-season innings for M.C.C. (114 against Yorkshire) and for Kent against the Rest of England (81 and 48) for L.B.W. to write that “to be able to play all sorts of bowling with equal ease is the gift of a giant amongst batsmen, and Kenneth Hutchings is that giant.”

Yet just two years later Kenneth’s career was over after he lost form so irrecoverably that he dropped first out of the Kent team and then out of first-class cricket, scoring just 5 and 0 for the M.C.C. versus Yorkshire in his last match; even L.B.W. had to admit that “the most promising of English batsman has shown a deterioration in his play that seldom comes to so fine a natural cricketer”, although he suggested no reasons for it.

“Every year finds him unfortunate in the way of injuries”

L.B.W. had however done so in those seasons when Kenneth’s form had dipped previously, noting a run of injuries - a badly-damaged hand after being hit in 1907, a dislocated finger while fielding in 1908, a strained leg muscle in 1911 and a shoulder damaged while attempting a diving slip catch in 1910. Even after returning from this injury his fielding was still noticeably impaired, it usually being as brilliant as his batting could be - in 1916 Johnny Tyldesley of Lancashire recalled the deceptive speed with which Kenneth returned the ball to the stumps and an occasion at Canterbury when he had run out his Lancashire team-mate Jack Sharp, who was barely half-way down the pitch when the wicket was broken.

Between 1907 and 1911 L.B.W. also detected a certain over-confidence, a reckless desire to score too quickly and yet an unnatural and ineffective caution two years later. Kenneth may also have been distracted by his business career; before the start of the 1912 season it had been reported that he was planning to effectively retire from county cricket by only playing for Kent in August while working in Birmingham, where he would play in the Birmingham League for Aston Unity – and retire hurt with another injury, a back sprain, against Dudley.

Remembering 2nd Lieutenant K.L. Hutchings

By 1914 and the outbreak of war Kenneth’s business career had taken him to Liverpool where he joined the 4th Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment. Attached to the 12th Battalion on September 3rd 1916 Kenneth took part in the attack on the Somme village of Guillemont during which he was killed by a shell; his body was never found and he is now remembered on the Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval and in Kent, where the manner of his final season did not dim the memory of what had gone before.

The quotes and other information in this article are taken from The Kentish Express, The Times, Cricket A Weekly Record, The Globe, The Referee and local Kent, Birmingham and Liverpool newspapers 1903-1916.

Images: Kenneth Hutchings Wills 1908, George Hirst F&J Smith 1912, Victor Trumper Ogdens 1902. Kenneth Lotherington Hutchings (“A Century Maker.”) © - National Portrait Gallery, London, Reference Collection NPG D45393. Banner image Wills 1929

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