Humphrey Critchley-Salmonson

Who was Humphrey Critchley-Salmonson?

Humphrey Seymour Ramsay Critchley-Salmonson, born at Preston in Dorset on 19 January 1894 and died at Ottery St Mary, Devon on 24 April 1956, played first-class cricket intermittently over an 18-year period for Somerset. He later played two first-class matches for Sir Julien Cahn's XI in Argentina.

Critchley-Salmonson was a right-handed lower order batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He appeared first for Somerset as a 16-year-old in 1910, having impressed as a fast bowler at Winchester College. "He came in of a lengthy run and delivered the ball with a windmill action that brought added fear to callow and timorous fifth-form batsmen," says one account of his arrival at Somerset. He played two matches in 1910, and two more in 1912, and then disappeared from first-class cricket for a dozen years, during which time he lived and played cricket in Argentina, representing the country with some success in international non-first-class matches: he took five Brazilian wickets for 43 runs in one international innings.

He returned to Somerset in 1924, playing nine County Championship matches, eight of them at home, in the second half of the season. "Both the pace and the enthusiasm had waned," wrote Somerset's historian. But he took 18 wickets including five for 23 in an innings when Sussex were bowled out for 58 on a damp pitch at Weston-super-Mare. And when Somerset hit the county's then-highest innings total, 675 for nine declared, against Hampshire at Bath, Critchley-Salmonson contributed 66, batting at No 9 and increasing his own personal highest score sixfold. After 1924, he disappeared from county cricket apart from one single appearance for Somerset against Surrey at The Oval in 1928, when he scored 32 and 0 and took one wicket.