Herbie Hewett

Herbert Tremenheere Hewett, born at Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset, on May 25, 1864 and died at Hove, Sussex on March 4, 1921, was a cricketer who played for Oxford University and Somerset.

Hewett was a belligerent left-handed opening batsman who hit the ball with power, but was also inclined to be argumentative off the pitch. Educated at Harrow School, he won a Blue at Oxford in 1886 and was then the captain who was instrumental in gaining first-class status and admission to the County Championship for Somerset in 1891.

He remained as Somerset captain for three seasons, usually opening the batting with the consummate stylist Lionel Palairet. Against Yorkshire at Taunton in 1892, they put on 346 for the first wicket, Hewett making 201. The stand remains the county's highest first-wicket partnership. In that season, Hewett made 1,405 runs at an average of more than 35, and Somerset finished third in the Championship, a position not equalled for 66 years and not surpassed for more than a century. Hewett was named as one of the "Five Batsmen of the Year" by Wisden, a forerunner to the Wisden Cricketers of the Year and now included in that series.

Hewett scored more than 1,000 runs again in 1893, but a disagreement over whether play should take place on a sodden pitch in the match against the Australians appears to have been badly resented. Hewett had taken some friends off to an inn near Taunton and was less than amused to be summoned in the late afternoon when the umpires declared the pitch fit for play. He did not play for the county again and at the end of the season he left Somerset.

His later first-class cricket was played for a variety of amateur teams, including MCC, and he toured South Africa. In 1895, selected as captain of "An England XI" at Scarborough he again had a disagreement that centred on a wet pitch. The crowd, believing Hewett to be to blame for the lack of play, became what he termed "insulting", with the result that he walked out of the match at lunchtime and had to be replaced by Fred Spofforth. "Wisden" sympathised: Hewett, it said, had been "much provoked". The following year saw his last first-class game.

References

* Sunshine, Sixes and Cider, by David Foot, David & Charles, 1986
* Next Man In, by Gerald Brodribb, Putnam & Co, 1952