Harry Chidgey

Who was Harry Chidgey?

Harry Chidgey was a first-class cricketer who played for Somerset as a wicketkeeper between 1900 and 1921, and a Test match umpire. He was born and died at Flax Bourton, Somerset.

Chidgey was the elder son of the innkeeper at the Angel Inn in Flax Bourton. He played as a professional cricketer for Somerset as a lower-order batsman and wicketkeeper and made his debut in the game against Gloucestershire in 1900. But with the amateurs Archie Wickham, Henry Martyn and Arthur Newton often available, Chidgey had just two further games in the 1902 season, and then did not reappear for six seasons. In the 1901 census, when he is living with his parents, he is listed as a "merchant's clerk".

After Somerset's disastrous 1907 season, Wickham retired and Newton scaled down his availability, so that from 1908 Chidgey became Somerset's regular wicketkeeper for the seasons up to, and just beyond, the First World War, though Newton made sporadic reappearances in several matches most seasons, nearly always home games for Somerset, and always displacing Chidgey: an indication of the pecking order between amateurs and professionals in Edwardian cricket is that of Chidgey's 99 first-class games, only 32 were home matches, and 18 of those were at Bath, the furthest outpost of Somerset cricket. In 1913, for example, he played 11 first-class games, one of them for MCC and only one was in Somerset. But by the 1911 census, at which time he had been married and widowed, he was able to call himself a "professional cricketer" on the census form.