John Cameron

Who was John Cameron?

John Hemsley Cameron was a cricketer who played in two Tests for the West Indian cricket team in 1939. But though Jamaican by birth, Cameron played only once for Jamaica, the bulk of his first-class cricket career being spent in England.

Cameron was a lower-order right-handed batsman of uncomplicated methods and a bowler who began as a prodigious leg-spin and googly bowler, but turned to off-breaks when he lost the knack of finger spin. He came to early fame as a schoolboy cricketer in 1931 when, having played for Taunton School, he was picked for the Rest of England side against the Public Schools XI and took all 10 wickets in the Schools' innings for 49 runs. The next season, 1932, he played a couple of matches for Somerset.

From 1934, he played for four seasons for Cambridge University, winning a Blue three times, and turned out for Somerset in the university holidays. As a bowler, his best season was 1935, when he took 60 wickets; as a batsman, he scored 863 runs in 1937.

In 1938, he played twice in first-class cricket in Jamaica, both times for the touring combined Oxford and Cambridge University side against the island team.