Montague Parker Bowden (1 November 1865 – 19 February 1892) was an English

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 ...

er, a

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 two

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Indoor cricket, Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (associa ...

against

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 ...

in 1888/89. Bowden was born in

Stockwell Stockwell is a district located in South London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated south of Charing Cross. History The name Stockwell is likely to have originated from a local well, with "stoc" being Old Englis ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, and educated at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

.Monty Bowden
CricketArchive. Retrieved 8 October 2022. Aged 23 years 144 days, he became England's youngest captain on 25 March 1889, when he captained England to victory in the second of his two Tests. Bowden had been deputy to C. Aubrey Smith, but Smith missed the second test through illness. Bowden stayed in South Africa to participate in the

Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush that began in 1886 and led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern-day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial ...

, went to Rhodesia with the

Pioneer Column The Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 and used in his efforts to annex the territory of Mashonaland, later part of Zimbabwe (once Southern Rhodesia). Background Rhodes was anxious to ...

, and ended up smuggling liquor. In 1892, he died in Umtali Hospital, Umtali, Rhodesia (now

Mutare Mutare, formerly known as Umtali until 1982, is the capital and largest city in the province of Manicaland. It is the third most populated in Zimbabwe. Having surpassed Gweru in the 2012 census, with an urban area, urban population of 224,802 ...

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

). Officially he died of

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

, although a fall from his cart, leading him to be trampled under the hooves of his own oxen contributed to his death. Umtali Hospital was nothing more than a glorified mud hut, where his body had to be protected from marauding lions, prior to being interred in a coffin made from whiskey cases.

References

External reference

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Daily Telegraph (UK newspaper)
1865 births 1892 deaths People educated at Dulwich College England Test cricketers England Test cricket captains English cricketers Surrey cricketers Gauteng cricketers Gentlemen cricketers Gentlemen of the South cricketers Gentlemen of England cricketers South African gold prospectors Wicket-keepers People from Stockwell Cricketers from Surrey Deaths from epilepsy People with epilepsy {{England-Test-cricket-bio-stub