Walter Hearne

Walter Hearne (15 January 1864 – 2 April 1925) was an English cricketer for Kent CCC. He was the elder brother of the great Middlesex bowler J.T.Hearne and was a bowler of somewhat similar style, being a medium paced right-hander with great accuracy and a pronounced off-break. However, unlike his younger sibling, Walter Hearne was not physically robust and suffered throughout his short career from knee problems, which ultimately led to his giving up the game at for the time a very young age. Also, even in his best season, Walter Hearne did not demonstrate that he possessed John Thomas’ sting on a firm pitch: indeed on the best wicket he had to bowl during 1894 at the Oval, he was severely punished taking only two wickets for 129. There was, however, no denying his deadliness on sticky wickets: in one spell during 1894 he took in three games thirty-eight wickets for 241 runs, including thirteen for 98 against Surrey at Catford. Walter Hearne's cricket basically began and ended with his bowling: prior to making a score of 34 not out in his last-ever match his highest score had been only 22, and he was not a strong field as his more famous brother was.

Although most of his first-class cricket was played between 1892 and 1894, Walter Hearne actually played for Kent as early as 1887, but in one of the driest-ever English summers he met with very little success and the emergence of Frederick Martin as Kent's main bowling force on sticky wickets meant he did not get another chance until 1890 – when again he failed to establish himself. With Martin declining abruptly in 1892 and Walter Wright affected by an unfortunate injury, however, Walter Hearne seized his first chance of playing regularly in first-class cricket and became Kent's leading wicket-taker with eighty-eight wickets. Against Somerset he took twelve wickets for 114 runs, whilst he took ten against both Nottinghamshire and Sussex.

1893 opened with a much greater feat than Walter Hearne ever accomplished previously when he took no fewer than fifteen wickets for 114 runs against a powerful Lancashire batting side at Old Trafford, but his cricket was restricted to half-a-dozen games by knee problems. However, 1894 saw Walter Hearne apparently fully fit and he was in cracking form from the start when he took seven for 50 against Warwickshire, and he kept up this form until the last few games when his effectiveness declined. In addition to his brilliant July spell noted above, Walter Hearne also did the hat-trick on a wearing wicket against Lancashire at Tonbridge in Kent's fourth successive win over that county.

For the time it seemed as if Walter Hearne would remain one of the best bowlers in county cricket for many years. However, just before the 1895 season Hearne broke down and could not play at all as surgeons attempted to deal with his knee problems. At the beginning of 1896 he seemed fit and resumed his place in the Kent eleven against Gloucestershire and Lancashire. Though he met with little success on the firm pitches, it was hoped Walter Hearne would be of great value to Kent when pitches deteriorated. However, after the surprise of beating his previous best score as a batsman by over fifty percent and helping Frank Marchant to add 105 for the eighth wicket, he yet again injured his knee. Treatment was attempted during 1896 but by the beginning of 1897 it was clear that there was no way by which the problem could be solved to allow Walter to continue in cricket as a player. However, Walter Hearne remained with Kent as scorer for the rest of his life, thus serving the county for thirty-eight years.