Richard Housley’s cricketing life is unremarkable, save that he played seven times against the All England Eleven (AEE) between 1866 and 1872 – and for six different teams!
He met them playing for Harrogate, Sutton-in-Ashfield (twice), Thomas Walker’s XI, Radcliffe-on-Trent, Mansfield Woodhouse, and Chesterfield. His best batting against AEE was 22no in Sutton-in-Ashfield’s victory in July 1887; he also took two wickets for Mansfield Woodhouse in a drawn game but an exact analysis is not available.
Housley also played one game for Sutton-in-Ashfield against the United South of England Eleven, scoring 7 in his only innings. He was rated as a fair right-hand bat and a good fielder – his most notable batting being a score of 36, the highest of the match, playing for the XXII Colts in April 1868.
His solo First-Class outing was in June 1870 when he appeared for Notts v Yorkshire at Trent Bridge, scoring just 2 and 1. He also umpired two Yorkshire games in 1877, both at Bramhall Lane, against Derbyshire and his home county of Nottinghamshire.
Housley’s only known professional engagement was in 1870 with the Surrey County School in Cranleigh. Apart from that engagement and the one match in Harrogate, he seems to have stayed and played in and around Mansfield Woodhouse where he was born, on 8 May 1849, and died – on 23 April 1881.
June 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 125