Robert Mornement

Surgeon Rear Admiral Robert Harry Mornement OBE (15 August 1873 — 16 April 1948) was an English first-class cricketer and a surgeon in the Royal Navy.

The son of Edward Mornement, he was born in August 1873 at Roudham, Norfolk. Mornement was a medical student at the Middlesex Hospital, graduating in 1896.[1] During his studies, Mornement played minor counties cricket for Norfolk in 1895 and 1896, making two appearances against Hertfordshire at Bishop's Stortford in the Minor Counties Championship.[2] In 1897, he was an assistant medical officer at the Cane Hill Hospital.[3] In December 1899, he joined the Royal Navy Medical Service (RNMS) and was appointed staff surgeon aboard HMS Highflyer,[4] before being appointed staff surgeon at Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth in June 1905.[5] Having scored heavily for the Royal Navy Cricket Club in minor cricket matches,[6] Mornement made his debut in first-class cricket for Hampshire against Yorkshire at Sheffield in the 1906 County Championship. He made two further first-class appearances for Hampshire in 1906, against Warwickshire and Somerset.[7] In his three matches for Hampshire, he took six wickets with his right-arm medium pace bowling at an average of 28.50, with best figures of 3 for 62.[8]

Mornement transferred aboard HMS Commonwealth as staff surgeon in May 1907.[9] He later made two further appearances in first-class cricket for the combined Army and Navy cricket team against a combined Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricket team at Portsmouth in 1910 and Aldershot in 1911.[7] He took three wickets at an average of 29.33 in his two matches,[8] in addition to scoring his only first-class half century, with a score of 73 at Aldershot.[10] Mornement served during the First World War, initially in the Royal Navy as a fleet surgeon, before being attached to the Medical Branch of the British Army as a temporary lieutenant colonel.[11] Toward the end of the war, he was made a Grade A lieutenant colonel in October 1918,[12] and following its conclusion he was made an OBE in the 1919 New Year Honours.[13] After the war, he was attached to the Royal Air Force, where he held the rank of wing commander until October 1919, when he returned to duties with the RNMS.[14] He was reappointed to Eastney Barracks in January 1921,[15] and was made a surgeon captain in December 1923.[16] He was placed on the retired list in August 1928,[17] and was promoted to surgeon rear admiral in April 1929.[18] Mornement died at the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham on 16 April 1948.[19]