Walter Hadow

Walter Henry Hadow (25 September 1849 – 15 September 1898) was an English first-class cricketer, who had amateur status.[1]

The Hadow family. Walter Hadow is seated second right.

Hadow was a noted schoolboy cricketer at Harrow, mentioned by Harry Altham as one of "a striking array of school batsmen".[2] He went on to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he continued to be a noted player and Altham described him as one of "a steady stream of exceptional batsmen from the ranks of the Universities".[3]

An all-rounder, he was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm roundarm slow bowler who made 97 first-class appearances from 1869 to 1884. He represented several teams but mostly Middlesex, Oxford University and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Hadow scored 3,071 runs at an average of 19.56 with a highest innings of 217, one of two centuries in addition to ten half-centuries. He held 84 catches and took 139 wickets at an average of 16.84 with a best analysis of 8/35. He took five wickets in an innings on nine occasions and three times took ten in a match.[4]

Below first-class he played at county level for Brecknockshore and, in 1868 and 1869, for Shropshire.[5]

Born at Regent's Park, London in 1849, Hadow died aged 48 at Dupplin Castle, Perthshire, his father-in-law's home, on 15 September 1898.[4] At the time of his death, he was Her Majesty's Commissioner for Prisons for Scotland.[6] His wife was Lady Constance Hay, daughter of George Hay-Drummond, 12th Earl of Kinnoull, and they had two sons and a daughter.[6]