Herbert Horace Armstrong (25 October 1862 – 1942) was an English first-class

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. Armstrong was born in October 1862 at

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

to John Armstrong, a salesman, and his wife, Jane.''1871 England Census''. Retrieved 17 April 2020. Moving to

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

in 1881, he began playing

club cricket Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are obse ...

for Southampton, where he was noted as being one of the club's best batsmen. Armstrong began playing for

Hampshire County Cricket Club Hampshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of England, historic county of Hamp ...

in 1882, making his debut 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 ...

against the

Marylebone Cricket Club The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...

. An

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are cons ...

, he played first-class cricket for Hampshire until the county lost its first-class status in 1885, having made 23 appearances. In these, he scored 502 runs at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 14.34, with a highest score of 68. With his right-arm medium pace bowling, he took 68 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 20.23; he took two five wicket hauls, with best figures of 7 for 33. Following the loss of Hampshire's first-class status, he continued to play second-class cricket for the county until 1889. Armstrong lived in Southampton until 1889 or 1890, working in a cousin's lamp and oil shop in St. Mary's Street. He married in 1889 and then moved to London to work with his brothers in a wholesale fruit business. He had two children, a boy and a girl. In 1913 returned to

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, ...

, where was the proprietor of a wool shop.''1939 England and Wales Register''. Retrieved 17 April 2020. Following his death at

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

in the first quarter of 1942, his daughter gave an album of press cuttings and badges to the Hampshire Cricket Museum.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Herbert 1862 births 1942 deaths Cricketers from the London Borough of Islington English cricketers Hampshire cricketers Date of death missing