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Frederick Toone

English cricketer and administrator, and rugby union footballer (1868-1930)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2024
Entity authorityQ5498869
Source-derived summary

Sir Frederick Charles Toone (25 June 1868 - 10 June 1930(1930-06-10) (aged 61)) was a cricket administrator, who in 1929 became the second man ever to be knighted for cricket-related activities. Unusually for a man who achieved such eminence in the game, he never played cricket at first-class level.

Cricket administrator

Toone was Secretary of Leicestershire from 1897 to 1902 and of Yorkshire from 1903 until his death. He was a great organiser, a quality that was put to particularly good use in ensuring the success of the benefit seasons of the Yorkshire professionals during his time in office. He died at Harrogate, Yorkshire.

He was a popular manager of three successive England touring teams to Australia: those of 1920–21, 1924–25 and 1928–29. It was following the last of these tours that he was knighted for his work in helping to promote good relations between "the Commonwealth and the Mother Country". In Wisden's report of the 1932–33 tour of Australia, it said: "the lamented death of Sir Frederick Toone left the M. C. C. without the most capable manager who has ever represented that body on a foreign tour".

As a young man, Toone played rugby union for Leicester, playing 22 games in the 1892–93 season including playing and scoring in the inaugural game at Welford Road.

Values

Sir Frederick Toone wrote the following "Definition of Cricket" in 1930:

It is a science, the study of a lifetime, in which you may exhaust yourself but never your subject.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frederick Toone” as english cricketer and administrator, and rugby union footballer (1868-1930). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1868, 1930, 1929, 1897—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Frederick, Toone and English can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as english cricketer and administrator, and rugby union footballer (1868-1930). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5498869. The first chronological checks are 1868, 1930, 1929 and 1897.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Frederick Toone”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Frederick Toone primary sources, Frederick Toone archive and Frederick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Frederick Toone”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Frederick Toone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.