Profile of JT Gwynn by Edward Liddle

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Player:

JT Gwynn

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DateLine: 11th March 2017

 

Jack Gwynn was the seventh of eight brothers to play for the XI at St Columba's College. He followed his three immediate seniors LH (Lucius), AP (Arthur), and RM (Robin) in captaining not only the College XI but also the University; he also emulated their academic excellence. Another brother Stephen, the eldest, had also captained St Columba's but gave up the game thereafter.

 

Of average height and slightly built, Jack Gwynn was an elegant right-hand batsman who, according to Irish cricket's first major historian WP Hone, "played with the same ease and grace of style as his brother Lucius." He scored over 3000 runs for the University, being captain in 1903, when he led the side against London County, on the occasion of WG Grace's first ball duck on his last appearance in Dublin. Gwynn hit five hundreds for the University 1st XI with 127 against Phoenix in 1905, his last and best season, his highest.

 

He was also an excellent slip fielder, putting in hours of practice with his brother Robin, bouncing a ball off a garden roller. That his catching was well nigh flawless, he once held six catches in an innings against Cork County in College Park in 1905 - before going on to catch Victor Trumper when the University Past and Present played the Australians in the next match - was somewhat strange as his fingers were - until the end of his life, gnarled and disjointed, as a result of a childhood spent fielding fierce drives from Lucius and Arthur in the family garden.

 

Gwynn also sported a broken nose courtesy of a "Tibby" Cotter bouncer in the Australian match referred to. He was an occasional leg-spinner and could with apparent ease bowl a nasty, nagging, left-arm medium pace.

 

Though he was from 1901 until he left to join the Indian Civil Service in late 1905, regarded as one of the best batsmen in Ireland, he never played for the national side. He was confidently expected to do so on Ireland's inaugural first class tour of England in 1902, but, racked by nerves, batted so badly in the pre-tour trial match, that he lost his place to the veteran JM Meldon who was a complete failure in the matches which followed.

 

Gwynn was selected to play against HDG Leveson-Gower's XI in 1905, but was unable to do so as he was in London completing his ICS training. Strangely RM was one of the selectors who chose him!

 

In India, while he played twice for the Europeans in the Madras Presidency match, most of his cricket was for the Madras Club, where according to Hone who worked there as a railway engineer, "he stood out in fairly good company." Deafness - a family trait - caused his retirement from the ICS in 1921, though he soon returned to India to write for The Manchester Guardian. The newspaper published his writings in book form in 1924 Indian Politics. He had not been consulted and was not pleased. However he returned to Ireland in 1926 still writing for The Guardian, which with a break to cover the Anglo-Indian Round Table Conference in 1934, he continued to do until 1936, when he purchased a small preparatory school in Dublin.

 

Apart from producing good cricket teams, he was ill suited to this and the school closed 10 years later. In the late 1920s and 30s, he made occasional active returns to the cricket field, taking part in some of the matches played by the revived Na Shuler Club, as well as returning sometimes to St Columba's. One long member of staff there who saw almost every 1st XI match for over 40 years once told this writer that Gwynn was the best batsman he ever saw on the College ground.

 

Jack Gwynn continued to write occasional articles for The Guardian and take an active interest in cricket almost until his death.

 

(Article: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
Copyright © 2017 Edward Liddle)