Full name Manley Colchester Kemp Batting style Right-handed | Role Batsman/wicketkeeper | |
First-class debut 1 September 1879 Gentlemen of the South v Gentlemen of the North Died 30 June 1951, Aylesbury, United Kingdom | ||
Manley Colchester Kemp (7 September 1861 – 30 June 1951) was an English schoolmaster and sportsman, known particularly for a first-class cricket career that extended from 1880 to 1895. He was born at Forest Hill, London and died at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Kemp was educated at Harrow School where he was captain of the cricket team and also won the public schools rackets championship in both 1879 and 1880. After Oxford University, where he was a scholar at Hertford College, he became a schoolmaster at Winchester College for three years from 1885, before returning to Harrow as a master, where he remained involved with school sports, particularly cricket, up to the end of his life, though he retired from teaching in 1921.
Kemp won Blues at Oxford for rackets and for soccer as well as playing for the Oxford cricket team in the University Match in each of his four seasons at the university. He had already appeared in first-class cricket before he went to Oxford, being picked for a "Gentlemen of the South" side in 1879 and for Kent and a Gentlemen of Kent team in 1880. He was a right-handed batsman who usually played in the middle order and a wicketkeeper, though he did not always keep wicket when he played for Kent.
As a batsman, Kemp's figures appear unimpressive to modern eyes, but he produced occasional innings of brilliance. As captain of the Oxford University team in both 1883 and 1884, he led the 1884 side to an unexpected victory over the full Australian touring team, making an unbeaten 63 out of an unbroken fourth-wicket partnership of 76. After leaving Oxford University, his first-class cricket was confined largely to the August school holidays, though he played almost a whole season in 1886; in that year, he made his highest score and only century, an innings of 175 for the Gentlemen of England cricket team against Cambridge University, made out of a total of 298 after the first six wickets had been lost for just 21 runs. He played in the Gentlemen v Players matches from 1883 to 1885. He did not appear in first-class cricket after 1895.
Two of his brothers, Charles and Arthur, also played first-class cricket for Kent, and Charles played for Oxford University too.