Major Alexander Gould Barrett (17 November 1866 – 12 March 1954) was an Englishman who was a member of the

landed gentry The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, th ...

. He served in the West Somerset Yeomanry, and was a keen amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played one first-class cricket match for Somerset in 1896, and was president of the club in the early 1930s.

Life

Barrett was born on 17 November 1866, the son of Major William Barrett, who served in the 2nd Somerset Militia, and Maria Herring (née Chard). He attended first Eton College and then

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, the ...

. He then entered the West Somerset Yeomanry, in which he remained until 1911, when he left having gained the rank of Major. Barrett made his only first-class appearance for Somerset, playing as a lower-order batsman against Cambridge University at Cambridge in 1896. He scored six runs in his first innings and a duck in his second, both times being bowled by

Horace Gray Horace Gray (March 24, 1828 – September 15, 1902) was an American jurist who served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and then on the United States Supreme Court, where he frequently interpreted the Constitution in ways that increa ...

. Three other players made their first-class debuts for Somerset in this match: like Barrett, two of them, Harry MacDonald and Douglas McLean never played first-class cricket again. Barrett played a lot of cricket for the Somerset Stragglers, an amateur side that played for enjoyment. He also established an annual fixture between a team of his selection "A. G. Barrett's XI" and the Somerset Light Infantry. He acted as President of Somerset County Cricket Club from 1931 to 1932. After outliving his brothers, he inherited the family estate late in life, and donated

Burrow Mump Burrow Mump is a hill and historic site overlooking Southlake Moor in the village of Burrowbridge within the English county of Somerset. It is a scheduled monument, with a never completed church on top of the hill a Grade II listed building. T ...

to the National Trust in 1946. He died on 12 March 1954 at Musgrove Hospital in Taunton, after a motor accident.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrett, Alexander 1866 births 1954 deaths Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford English cricketers People educated at Eton College Somerset cricketers Cricketers from Taunton