Arthur Ernest Pothecary was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 cricketer

Cricketer

A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....

. Pothecary was a left-handed batsman who bowled slow left-arm orthodox spin.

Pothecary made his first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 debut for Hampshire County Cricket Club

Hampshire County Cricket Club

Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...

 in the 1927 County Championship

County Championship

The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...

 against Surrey

Surrey County Cricket Club

Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...

. Early in his career Pothecary was tried by the club as a replacement for the likes of Phil Mead

Phil Mead

Charles Phillip Mead was a left-handed batsman for Hampshire and England between 1905 and 1936. He was born at 10 Ashton Buildings , second eldest of seven children...

, George Brown

George Brown (cricketer)

George Brown was an English cricketer who played in 7 Tests from 1921 to 1923. George Brown was born in Cowley, Oxfordshire, the son of Edwin Brown and Sarah Ann...

, Jack Newman

Jack Newman (English cricketer)

John Alfred 'Jack' Newman was an English cricketer who played for Hampshire...

 and Alec Kennedy. Early in his career Pothecary showed signs of class, but although a consistent performer, Pothecary's potential was never fully realised.

Pothecary represented Hampshire in 268 first-class matches from 1927 until the Second World War and played a further three for the county after the war in 1946, with his final appearance for the county coming in 1946 against Sussex

Sussex County Cricket Club

Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...

 at Dean Park Cricket Ground

Dean Park Cricket Ground

Dean Park is a cricket ground in Bournemouth, England, currently used by Bournemouth University Cricket Club, as well as by and Suttoners Cricket Club....

, Bournemouth

Bournemouth

Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

. In his 271 matches for the county, Pothecary scored 9,447 runs at a batting average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of 23.34, with 47 half centuries, 9 centuries and a high score of 130 against the touring New Zealanders in 1937. Pothecary scored over 1,000 runs in a season on four occasions: 1933, 1936, 1937 and 1938. With the ball Pothecary took 52 wickets at a bowling average

Bowling average

Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...

 of 41.14, with best figures of 4/47 which came on debut against Surrey; Pothecary's wickets included Jack Hobbs

Jack Hobbs

Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....

, Andy Sandham

Andy Sandham

Andrew Sandham was an English cricketer, a right-handed batsman who played 14 Test matches between 1921 and 1930. He scored over 40,000 first-class runs, but bowled only very rarely; he took just 18 wickets in his career.Sandham made his Surrey debut in 1911, and was capped in 1913...

, Alfred Jeacocke and Tom Shepherd

Tom Shepherd

Thomas Frederick 'Tom' Shepherd was an English cricketer...

. In the field Pothecary took 147 catches for Hampshire, fielding mostly at cover point.

Later activities

Pothecary was appointed to the first-class Umpires

Umpire (cricket)

In cricket, an umpire is a person who has the authority to make judgements on the cricket field, according to the Laws of Cricket...

 list in 1949, where from 1949 to 1958 he stood in 254 first-class matches, with his final match standing as an Umpire between an England XI and a Commonwealth XI

Commonwealth XI cricket team

The Commonwealth XI cricket team played over 100 first-class cricket matches from 1949 to 1968. The team started out as a side made up of mostly English, Australian and West Indian cricketers, that toured the subcontinent but later on played first-class fixtures in England...

.

Pothecary later became a groundsman, taking charge of the Royal Air Force Sports Ground

Royal Air Force Sports Ground

The Royal Air Force Sports Ground is a cricket ground in Uxbridge, situated behind RAF Uxbridge. The ground also goes by the name of Vine Lane, a nearby main road. It was first used in 1939 by the RAF. Teams such as the MCC, the Middlesex Cricket Board, the Army, Middlesex youth teams and the...

 in Uxbridge

Uxbridge

Uxbridge is a large town located in north west London, England and is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. It forms part of the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is located west-northwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres...

. Pothecary died at Iver

Iver

Iver is in the south-east corner of the English county of Buckinghamshire and it forms one of the largest civil parishes in the South Bucks district.Iver railway station is in Richings Park.-Etymology:...

, Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

 on May 21, 1991.

External links

• Arthur Pothecary at Cricinfo
  Cricinfo
  ESPNcricinfo is believed to be the largest cricket-related website on the World Wide Web. Content includes news,articles, live scorecards,live text commentary and a comprehensive and searchable database called 'StatsGuru', of historical matches and players from the 18th century to the present...
  
  
• Arthur Pothecary at CricketArchive
  CricketArchive
  CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...
  
  
• Matches and detailed statistics for Arthur Pothecary