Herbert Temlett Gamlin known as Octopus Gamlin, played in 15 rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 internationals for England

England national rugby union team

The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 between 1899 and 1904 as a full-back. He also played 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...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 for Somerset

Somerset County Cricket Club

Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 in 1895 and 1896. He was born at West Buckland

West Buckland

West Buckland is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated south west of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district. The parish has a population of 999.-History:...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

 and died at North Cheam, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

Gamlin was educated at Wellington School

Wellington School, Somerset

Wellington School is a British co-educational independent school in Wellington, Somerset, England catering for both day pupils and boarders. There are currently 750 pupils on roll including 200 students in the sixth form. The Headmaster is Martin Reader....

 and played both cricket and rugby union for Somerset as a teenager.

Rugby career

Gamlin played as a full-back and was renowned for the strength of his tackling: an obituary in The Times in 1937 said that he "probably was the most powerful and effective tackler on record". His ability to stop opponents as they ran towards him led to him being nicknamed "The Octopus": "It was no fancy that credited him with the feat of tackling two men more or less at the same time–one in either hand," The Times rugby correspondent wrote. A later letter responding to this memoir identified an incident where Gamlin had indeed tackled two men at once in a match against the Welsh Barbarians team and also noted that his tackling technique was essentially "bear-hugs enveloping both man and ball".

Cricket career

Gamlin played as a tail-ender right-handed batsman and a right-arm off-break bowler in two consecutive matches in July 1895. In the first, he failed to score a run or take a wicket against Essex

Essex County Cricket Club

Essex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Essex. Its limited overs team is called the Essex Eagles, their team colours this season are blue.The club plays most of its home games...

 at Taunton. Essex's total of 692 was the team's highest first-class score for 95 years until surpassed in 1990. Gamlin's second match, against Lancashire

Lancashire County Cricket Club

Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...

, also at Taunton, was even more difficult; Lancashire scored 801 and captain Archie MacLaren scored 424, the first score of more than 400 runs by an individual batsman in first-class cricket. MacLaren finally fell to Gamlin's off-spin, and Gamlin took the last wicket of the innings as well, perversely turning in the best bowling figures of his short first-class career in this innings by taking two for 100. He failed to score in this match too. After four consecutive scores of 0, he finally made 2 and 5 in his single match in 1896, against Yorkshire

Yorkshire County Cricket Club

Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

, but he failed to take any further wickets, and this was the final first-class match of his career.