John Grosvenor Beevor was a solicitor based in Worksop who played five First-Class games for Nottinghamshire and two other matches at that level between 1868 and 1871. He was educated at Uppingham School where he was in the XI for four seasons from 1859; in 1863, he played for Old Uppinghamians and represented them throughout the rest of that decade.
His first representative match was for the Free Foresters v Southgate in June 1867 and in the following year he made his county debut, versus Lancashire at Trent Bridge. In that match he had to retire ill having made just 12 runs.
Beevor’s subsequent appearances for Notts were few – two in each of 1869 and 1870 and his only innings of note was 88 against Surrey at The Oval in 1869 when he added 92 with Richard Daft for the fourth wicket. In 1873 he appeared for Nottinghamshire v the Next XV and for the Gentlemen of Nottinghamshire v Free Foresters, neither of these being First-Class fixtures. He scored exactly 100 for the Gentlemen of Notts v Gentlemen of Warwickshire at Beeston in 1869.
A right-hand bat and a round-arm slow bowler, he twice payed for the Gentlemen of the North v Gentlemen of the South and otherwise his cricket was at club level, for Uppingham Rovers, Retford, Newark and, remarkably, a one-off appearance for Montreal v Longwood, played at Boston, Mass, in 1881, in which he scored 9 and 8.
The Beevor family has some interesting connections, and a penchant for recycling names. This John Grosvenor Beevor was the son of Henry Beevor, believed to be the one of that named who served on the Notts CCC committee in 1872, and called his own son Henry. That Henry in turn named his son John Grosvenor, born in 1905, who gained some reputation after serving in the Special Operations Executive in WWII. He broke with tradition and called his son Antony – a much-decorated military historian and author; Antony’s mother was Carinthia Waterfield, a published author under the name Kinta Beevor.
The John Grosvenor Beevor that played for Notts was born on New Year’s Day 1845 at Barnby Moor and served as a JP on the local benches; he also was a member, at different times, of the committee at Uppingham Rovers and with Nottinghamshire Gentlemen. He died, aged 58, also at Barnby Moor, on 5 May 1903.
His First-Class figures were 322 runs from 13 innings with one not-out, at an average of 26.83 and that highest score of 88.
February 2024
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 115
See John Beevor's career stats here