Geoffrey Russell Rees Colman (14 March 1892 – 18 March 1935) was an English

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er active in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

from 1912 to 1924. Colman was born at

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

to mustard manufacturer Russell James Colman, of Crown Point House, Norwich, and Edith Margaret (née Davies). He was educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

, before attending

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

. While still attending Eton, Colman made his

minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

debut for

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

in the 1911

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County Championship is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national counties (previously ca ...

, making three appearances in that season. His debut in

came the following year for

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

against the touring

South Africans South Africans are the citizens of South Africa (officially the Republic of South Africa ''RSA. These individuals include those residing within the borders of South Africa, as well as the South African diaspora. History The first modern inh ...

at the Magdalen Ground, Oxford. Prior to the start of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Colman made 22 first-class appearances for the university. Playing primarily as a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

, Colman scored 946 runs, making one

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

score of 127 against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

in 1913. He gained his

Oxford blue A blue is an award of sporting colours earned by athletes at some universities and schools for competition at the highest level. The awarding of blues began at University of Oxford, Oxford and University of Cambridge, Cambridge universities in Eng ...

in 1913. With the onset of war, Colman enlisted in the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

. He served in the 7th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade on the Western Front with the rank of second lieutenant. He later served in the Machine Gun Corps, achieving the rank of temporary

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in January 1917. During the course of the war he was severely wounded, which would affect him in later years. On 25 February 1919, Colman married Lettice Elizabeth Evelyn, daughter of Charles Robert Whorwood Adeane, of Babraham Hall, Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. Their five children included Timothy Colman. He also resumed playing minor counties cricket for Norfolk, representing his home county until 1930, but the wounds he sustained during the war curtailed his minor counties career. He made one final appearance in first-class cricket when he was selected to play for the combined Minor Counties cricket team in 1924 against the touring South Africans at the County Ground, Lakenham. As a member of the Norwich

Colman's Colman's is an English manufacturer of mustard and other sauces, formerly based and produced for 160 years at Carrow, in Norwich, Norfolk. Owned by Unilever since 1995, Colman's is one of the oldest existing food brands, famous for a limited ra ...

family, he served as a company director until his death at Framingham Earl, Norfolk, on 18 March 1935, from

endocarditis Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves. Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, o ...

caused by a chest wound sustained during the war. After his death, the thatched

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

at the County Ground in Lakenham was erected in his memory in 1936.

References

External links

Geoffrey Colman
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

Geoffrey Colman
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Colman, Geoffrey 1892 births 1935 deaths Cricketers from Norwich People educated at Eton College Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English cricketers Norfolk cricketers Oxford University cricketers British Army personnel of World War I Rifle Brigade officers Machine Gun Corps officers Minor Counties cricketers 20th-century English businesspeople Deaths from endocarditis Geoffrey People from South Norfolk (district) Military personnel from Norwich British military personnel killed in World War I