Frank Lee

Who was Frank Lee?

Frank Stanley Lee, born at St. John's Wood on 24 July 1905 and died in Westminster on 30 March 1982 was an English first-class cricketer and an umpire who officiated in Test matches.

As a player, Lee was a solid, rather slow-scoring left-handed opening batsman. He played a couple of matches for Middlesex in 1925, but unable to command a regular place in the side he moved to Somerset, where he became qualified to play in 1929. He scored 107 in his third match for his new county, and though he struggled for runs in 1930 and did not complete 1,000 runs in a season for the first time until 1933, he was then a regular in the side until he retired after the 1947 season.

His best batting year was 1938, when he scored 2,019 runs at an average of 44.86. He bowled only occasionally, but against Warwickshire at Taunton in 1933 he took five wickets for 53 runs. For several seasons right up to his retirement, he acted as reserve wicketkeeper if regular Somerset keeper Wally Luckes was ill or injured.

Lee's first first-class match as an umpire came while he was still a player: he stood in the Somerset match with Cambridge University at Bath in 1947, and then played in the other matches of the Bath cricket festival. He then joined the first-class umpires' list for 1948 and a year later stood in the first of 29 Test matches.