Born in Blyth on 16 July 1868, Henry Richard Neville Ellison, from a cricketing family, was educated at Rugby School but was not in the XI. He went out to India and appeared for the Madras Presidency in 1893/94 and Madras in 1894/95. He was ordained in 1898 when back in England.
The family was very well-connected in Lincolnshire and his ancestors had owned both Hartsholme and Boultham Halls – the grounds of each are now public parks – and featured in civic and business life in that county. His father Charles Christopher Ellison, also a curate, was an enthusiastic cultivar, showing roses very successfully and playing a significant part in the development of the Ellison’s Orange, a hybrid eating apple. The Rev Henry also had his enthusiasms and won prizes in bee-keeping whilst rector in Derbyshire.
From 1889 to 1893 he represented Lincolnshire, then Wiltshire between 1901 and 1905, also appearing in 15 matches for them in the Minor Counties Championship between 1903 and 1905. His only First-Class match was for Notts v Gentlemen of Philadelphia in July 1897, when the county was without Dixon, Attewell, Shrewsbury and William Gunn. Ellison scored 2 and 3, and bowled 0-5.
Amongst the clubs that he played for were Incogniti, Band of Brothers, Lincoln Lindum (1889), Free Foresters (1893-1925), The Mote (based in Maidstone -1908), Derby Club and Ground (1919-28) and Derbyshire Friars (1923). He also skippered the Derbyshire Second XI between 1922 and 1928. Commencing in 1930 he was honorary secretary of Derbyshire CCC.
During and after the Great War he was living in Aston-on-Trent in Derbyshire; during that conflict he became Captain of the local Home Guard. He died in Elstead in Surrey on 7 October 1948, aged 80 years.
Henry’s father played for Lincolnshire between 1853 and 1869 and two of his (Henry’s) grandsons played first-class cricket. All-rounder Richard Ellison (Kent and Tasmania), played 11 Test matches and 14 limited-over internationals for England between 1984-86, and in a career spanning 13 seasons between 1981 and 1993 appeared in 207 First-Class matches and 176 List-A games; a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1986 he is currently a Cricket Liaison Officer for the ECB. Richard’s younger brother, Charles, appeared in 23 First-Class and five List-A games for Cambridge University and Combined Universities between 1982-86. Richard’s son Charles Peter played four First-Class games for Oxford MCCU between 2011 and 2013.
May 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 250
See Rev Henry Ellison's career stats here