William Sawyer (cricketer)
English cricketer (1712-1761)
William Sawyer (c. 3 December 1712 – c. 2 April 1761) was an English cricketer who played during the 1730s and 1740s. He was mainly associated with Richmond and Surrey, but he also played for England teams. Although information about his career is limited by a lack of surviving data, he was a top-class player, and he made numerous appearances in historically important matches, both eleven-a-side and single wicket. Sawyer spent his whole life in Richmond, and was an innkeeper there.
1736
In June 1736, there was a major single wicket match on Kennington Common and the report names Wakeland and George Oldner of London Cricket Club playing together against two "famous" Richmond players who are "esteemed the best two in England". Unfortunately the esteemed pair are not named, though one of them suffered serious facial injuries in this game when the ball came off his bat and hit his nose. The report rails against "human brutes" who insisted he should play on despite his injuries, the money they had staked being of much greater importance to them. It is believed that one of the Richmond players was William Sawyer, who was certainly active in the 1730s and who, in 1743, was acclaimed by name as "one of the best six players in England".
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This entry incorporates text from “William Sawyer (cricketer)” 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.