James Maurice Quinton (12 May 1874 — 22 December 1922) was an English first-class cricketer and educator.
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | James Maurice Quinton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 12 May 1874 Simla, Punjab Province, British India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 22 December 1922 (aged 48) Reading, Berkshire, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relations | Francis Quinton (brother) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1895–1896 | Oxford University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1895–1899 | Hampshire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: ESPNcricinfo, 28 December 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The son of the colonial administrator James Wallace Quinton, he was born in British India at Simla in May 1874. He was educated in England at Cheltenham College,[1] where he played for and captained the college cricket team.[2] From there, he matriculated to Worcester College, Oxford.[3] It was for Oxford University that Quinton made his debut in first-class cricket for, against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) at Oxford in 1895.[4] In the same season, he also played for Hampshire against Leicestershire in the County Championship.[4] He made a second appearance for Oxford University against the MCC in 1896, before making two appearances for Hampshire in the 1896 County Championship.[4] A final appearance for Hampshire followed in the 1899 County Championship, against Essex.[4] In six first-class matches, Quinton scored 79 runs at an average of 9.87, in addition to taking a single wicket.[5]
After graduating from Oxford, he became an assistant master at Stanmore Park School,[3] where his headmaster was an Oxford cricket blue of an earlier vintage, Vernon Royle. Three days before Christmas in 1922, he boarded a Great Western Railway express train. Shortly before the train reached Reading, Quinton committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in a first-class lavatory.[2][6] The inquest into his death was told by his older brother, Francis Quinton (who was an army officer and cricketer), that he had been depressed after a bout of influenza and had been unreasonably worried over a mistake in his membership of a London club, an apparently trivial matter which he had seen as a potential disgrace for himself and his family. The coroner returned a verdict of "suicide during temporary insanity".[7] At the time of his death, Quinton was described as living in Church Crookham, Hampshire.[6]
References edit
- ^ Cheltenham College Register, 1841-1889. Cheltenham College. 1890. p. 393.
- ^ a b Firth, David (2011). Silence Of The Heart: Cricket Suicides. Random House. p. 55. ISBN 9781780573939.
- ^ a b Holland, Arthur William (1904). Oxford and Cambridge Yearbook, 1904. London: William Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd. p. 500.
- ^ a b c d "First-Class Matches played by James Quinton". CricketArchive. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ "Player profile: James Quinton". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ a b "Schoolmaster shot in express train". The Times. No. 43222. London. 23 December 1922. p. 8. Retrieved 19 February 2024 – via Gale.
- ^ "A Schoolmaster's Delusion". The Times. No. 43223. London. 27 December 1922. p. 7. Retrieved 19 February 2024 – via Gale.