John Charlton Hubble (10 February 1881 – 26 February 1965), known as Jack Hubble, was an English professional

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 who played

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 ...

for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ken ...

in the first half of the 20th century. He was a right-handed batsman and

wicket-keeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the Cricket player, player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop Delivery (cricket), deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the ...

who played professionally for 25 years and was part of the Kent teams which won four

County Championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

s before

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 ...

.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 269–272.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 2020-12-21.)

Cricket career

Hubble joined

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

as a First XI player in 1904, making his debut against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

at the

Angel Ground The Angel Ground was a sports ground at Tonbridge in the English county of Kent. It was used as a venue for first-class cricket by Kent County Cricket Club between 1869 and 1939 and then for association football by Tonbridge Angels F.C., unti ...

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) (historic spelling ''Tunbridge'') is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Mall ...

where he had been part of the Tonbridge Nursery, Kent's turn-of-the-century training ground for young professionals under Captain William McCanlis.First-class matches played by Jack Hubble
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-04-08.Birley D (2013) ''A Social History of English Cricket'' Aurum Press.
Available online
, retrieved 2016-04-08. He played few matches for the First XI initially and was used mainly as a batsman, the wicket-keeping position being held by Fred Huish in the years before the

First World War 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 ...

.Hubble, John Charlton - Obituaries in 1966
''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'', 1966. Retrieved 2016-04-08.First-class batting and fielding in each season by Jack Hubble
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-04-08. He played nine times in the 1906 side which won the County Championship for the first time in Kent's history, but did not play more than ten games until 1910. Hubble played a more important part in the Kent side from 1910 to 1914, playing in 30 matches in 1913 as the County won the last of their four

titles of the Golden Age of cricket. Huish retired after the 1914 season and when first-class cricket returned after the war Hubble became the first choice wicket-keeper.Three former Kent greats honoured in special presentation

, 2009-08-02. Retrieved 2016-04-08. He continued to play regularly until the end of the 1926 County Championship season when

Les Ames Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (3 December 1905 – 27 February 1990) was a wicket-keeper and batsman for the England cricket team and Kent County Cricket Club. Born at Elham, Kent, Ames began his first-class cricket, first-class career with h ...

succeeded him as the main wicket-keeper. Between them Huish, Hubble and Ames are considered the first in the line of great Kent wicket-keepers.Sengupta A (2013
Alan Knott: Arguably greatest wicketkeeper ever
Cricket Country, 2013-04-09. Retrieved 2016-04-08. The three men filled the role for Kent for half a century. Hubble played ten times for Kent in the 1927 season, before playing for MCC in South Africa. Hubble was not a member of the MCC tour party but was coaching in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

at Dale College and Queen's College during the tour.Test Cricket Tours - England to South Africa 1927-28
Test Cricket Tours. Retrieved 2016-04-08. He was invited to play in a first-class match for MCC against a South African Invitational XI at Benoni in December. He never played international cricket, although he is often considered to be unlucky not to have done so.A brief history

. Retrieved 2016-04-08. He played just five first-class matches in 1928 and 1929 combined, ending his first-class career playing for MCC against the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

in July 1929. As a wicket-keeper, Hubble made over 200

stumpings Stumped is a method of dismissing a batter in cricket, in which the wicket-keeper puts down the wicket of the striker while the striker is out of their ground. It is governed by Law 39 of the Laws of Cricket. Being "out of their ground" m ...

during his career. He dismissed ten batsmen in a match in 1923 against

College Ground, Cheltenham The College Ground is a cricket ground in the grounds of Cheltenham College in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Gloucestershire County Cricket Club have played more than 300 first-class and more than 70 List A matches there. It also host ...

, a Kent record that as of April 2016 he still holds jointly with Huish. He contributed to over 500 dismissals as a wicket-keeper and took a total of 437 catches in his career, with his best season behind the stumps being 78 dismissals in 1926. As a batsman Hubble scored more than 10,000 runs for Kent and was considered a "beautiful exponent of off-side strokes". He could score quickly at times, his highest score of 189 being made in less than three hours at

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...

in 1911. He only scored five centuries during his career but of Kent's main wicket-keepers only Ames and

Alan Knott Alan Philip Eric Knott (born 9 April 1946) is a former cricketer who represented England at international level in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI). Knott is widely regarded as one of the most eccentric characters in cricket and as o ...

have, as of April 2016, scored more runs for the county.

Later life

Hubble set up a sports goods business in

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest Town status in the United Kingdom, town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, l ...

in 1910.Hunter C (2012
It's the end of a true sporting legend
''Kent Messenger'', 2012-08-10. Retrieved 2016-04-08. He joined forces with former teammates

and Tich Freeman after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, setting up stores under the names ''Hubble and Ames'' in Gillingham and ''Hubble and Freeman'' in

. The company later merged with Readers who manufactured cricket balls and was eventually taken over by

Kookaburra Sport Kookaburra Sport Pty Ltd (or simply Kookaburra) is an Australian sports equipment and apparel company based in Melbourne, Australia. The company was founded in 1890 and specialises in manufacturing various equipment used for Australian rules foo ...

. The stores closed in 2012. Hubble coached cricket in South Africa for a number of years and after retirement became a qualified umpire. He died in 1965 aged 84. Hubble's nephew, Harold Hubble, also played first-class cricket for Kent for three seasons.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hubble, Jack 1881 births 1965 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 20th-century English sportsmen L. G. Robinson's XI cricketers People from Wateringbury Wicket-keepers Cricketers from Kent