Lucius Gwynn [info following up a question on the "Trivia 2020 thread]

[PeterCS]

This may be of interest only to Trike - or maybe not even to Trike! :-O - but I'll take the risk.

On the Trivia thread page 3, I gave this supplementary information to the answers:

Because cricinfo is a disaster area, here's the Wisden write-up of the second match [ in July 1895 between the "Gentlemen" and the "Players"]. This time closer - ending up as a draw. Apols once again for the indistinct reproduction. You'll get the drift.



Gwynn - not Nell, another Irishman - is an interesting case, highlighted in that report.

Looks like a sort of younger brother of Fry ... The same obvious athleticism, the same show of dandyish insouciance, the same (desperate?) daredevil air, and even the same way of holding the bat for the "front-of-pavilion pose". You'll know that photo of Fry, I suppose.



So he's easy to find in the team picture. As easy to spot as Big Tom in the Players photograph.

[PeterCS]

Well, there's more. Gwynn is an interesting little study.

A bright intellect, and a potential star of cricket, although his studies and budding professional career (academic) clearly got in the way - perhaps also explaining his cricketing inconsistency apart from his golden (cricketing) year of 1895.

And a sad case. .... And I have learned something, just from this bit of extra reading. I somehow thought "consumption" (as it was called at the time) was an affliction largely striking the poor, economically & medically neglected and malnourished - but it seems not. Gwynn died at 29! Cut off in his prime.

(So many posts about devastating mass infections at the moment. I raised Spanish Flu at the start of the Trivia 2020 thread ...)

The Irishman also has a close relevance to the career of Ranji. First replacing the mercurial Gujarati prince (whom the report above mentions withdrawing at the last minute from the second G v P match of 1895), then making way for him in the following year.

[PeterCS]

Most of the extra material I'm adding here, apart from the above second photo, is not exactly abstruse:

Wiki!


But I didn't see it last time (four or five years ago) when I looked at quiz questions regarding the so-called Golden Age of Cricket. And so this is presumably a relatively new wiki entry.

In fact, at the bottom of the page, I notice it was last edited a week ago (25 March 2020)!


You can see it includes four pictures - one of which is the best-known photo, young Lucius posing raffishly - Fry-like, I suggested - in front of the pavilion.

Here's his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Gwynn

[PeterCS]

The wedding photo there - taken in the year also of his death - gave me a wobble, I must admit.

("Pull yourself together, man, this is the Hard-as-Nails Bails, where men must be men ...")

But really, I mean - dead, a couple of months later ...

[PeterCS]

And I didn't know he was not only an academic star, but also a rugby international, who won the Five Nations with Ireland, defeating England ...


The photo linked below is so deteriorated (it looks more like a drawing?), that I'll have to "do a Bradman" and admit I can't say for sure which is Gwynn. Gettyimages certainly doesn't know - they've just lobbed in the 15 names of the champion team.

But he's top left, at a guess. The right height & build, as well as (as far as probably anyone could make out from that sketch) the right sort of face.

But in any case, he was obviously some achiever ... and a multi-talent.

Link: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-irish-team-winners-of-the-home-nations-rugby-news-photo/90724270

[PeterCS]

But there is a little more, which has - again - become available only recently. This last one: 2018.


I don't know who Dr Pradip Dhole is - have you heard of him, Trike? (or also furriner, if furri is still in reach of these here Bails ...) - but he has compiled a neat background-filling article and encomium here:

LINK: https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/lucius-gwynn-the-irish-dual-international-who-made-way-for-ranjitsinhji-696791


And so, it seems, well over a century later, a minor legend is revived ,,, in a couple of corners of cyberspace.


PS:
> Trike: funnily enough (!), about 1/3 the way down that page (use the slider if you want to access it directly) - there's a link also to "Frank Druce: A giant for Cambridge University"!


/End

[PeterCS]

[skully]

Any relation to Fred Gwynn, Peter?

[furriner]

But there is a little more, which has - again - become available only recently. This last one: 2018.


I don't know who Dr Pradip Dhole is - have you heard of him, Trike? (or also furriner, if furri is still in reach of these here Bails ...) - but he has compiled a neat background-filling article and encomium here:
......


/End

Nah Peter never heard of Dhole, but he sure seems ti have some very interesting articles to his name- all snippets from history type.  Will read him.

[PeterCS]

Any relation to Fred Gwynn, Peter?

Doubtful perhaps (btw: that is one mighty big frame, Skulls ...)

Nor necessarily related to the most famous of that name, either:  the previously mentioned Nell Gwyn/n/e (variously spelt, it was not a very standardised age).

The actress & courtesan

(Is Nell where the old-fashioned English euphemism started, as in jokes ending in "as the actress said to the bishop ..."? Probably more a widespread double-vocation in a desperate, male-dominated age.Where every actress was considered fair game, if not game.)

Nell of sharp wit and very considerable personal confidence ... if any of the reporting, hearsay and gossip is true (probably not) ....



..... oh, BUGGER, and there we are again, back with Current Discussion Topic #1 AGAIN:



Both wiki.


Back on the serious side, to Skully's jest, we might as well be serious too - my Dictionary of Surnames says:

GWYN(N), GWYNNE (also more rarely found as Gwin, Gwin):

from Old Welsh & Cornish: "fair/light(-haired), white (faced)", but common in Ireland

I suppose some offshoots of this kin denoted as of Ancient-British origin will have found their way to Amerikay at some point ... perhaps in another famine,...  hence Herman Munster's player.

Lucius certainly fits that name. Light-coloured complexion & hair (I imagine him sandy/ginger coloured - the famous Celtic pigment), and also a "West Brit" (*), it seems.

( (*)As supposedly "native" Irish people (originally hailing from SE Europe, S Europe, Spain, France etc. - even the swarthiest Celts did not actually start out in Ireland) refer disparagingly to compatriots accused of affecting British manners, airs and attitudes.

[PeterCS]

But there is a little more, which has - again - become available only recently. This last one: 2018.


I don't know who Dr Pradip Dhole is - have you heard of him, Trike? (or also furriner, if furri is still in reach of these here Bails ...) - but he has compiled a neat background-filling article and encomium here:
......


/End

Nah Peter never heard of Dhole, but he sure seems ti have some very interesting articles to his name- all snippets from history type.  Will read him.

Always glad if my discursive rambles through archives, annals and other miscellany bring up a useful lead for others occasionally!

[tricycle]

Cheers Pete. Interesting stuff. I've not heard of Dhole either. But will check him out.

[skully]

Did you check him out, t?

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