Percy Hardy

Frederick Percy Hardy, born at Blandford Forum, Dorset on June 26, 1880, and died at King's Cross railway station, London, on March 9, 1916, was a cricketer who played first-class cricket for Somerset.

Hardy was a left-handed batsman who sometimes opened the innings and a right-arm medium-pace bowler. He played for Surrey's colts team, but left to join Somerset. He made his debut in 1902 and in his second match took the slip catch that dismissed Victor Trumper for just five – Trumper was dismissed a second time for five by the same bowler, Gill, later in the match.

Hardy played as a professional in a mainly amateur team, and made fairly regular appearances for Somerset right through to 1914. In 1910, when the side lost 15 out of 18 County Championship matches and failed to secure a single point all season, he headed the Somerset batting figures with 700 runs, including his own highest score of 91 against the champions, Kent, at Taunton. His best bowling figures, six for 82, also came in that season, against Middlesex at Bath.

Hardy's death is something of a mystery. He was, in the words of Wisden's 1917 edition, "found dead on the floor of a lavatory at King's Cross station (G.N.R.)... His throat was cut and a blood-stained knife was by his side." Hardy was serving with the City of London Yeomanry and Somerset CCC historian David Foot has written that the knife was Hardy's own and that the death was suicide brought on by distress at being sent back to the World War I battlefield. [ Sunshine, Sixes and Cider, by David Foot (David & Charles, 1986) ]

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