George Dennett

Edward George Dennett, the Gloucestershire slow left-arm bowler, died at Cheltenham on September 15, aged 57. After an engagement with the Grange club, Edinburgh, he played regularly for the county from 1903 until 1925 and subsequently made occasional appearances.

G. L. Jessop discovered Dennett in Bristol club cricket, the scorer of a century and the taker of many wickets in one match. Tried at Lord's, Dennett began with a hard experience. Middlesex, who won the Championship that year, scored 502, P. F. Warner and L. J. Moon making 248 for the first wicket. Jessop in A Cricketer's Log wrote: Despite the rare pasting he received, Dennett lost neither his head nor his length; nor did he seem the slightest bit dismayed by our infernally bad fielding.

A consistently hard-working and earnest cricketer, Dennett had one particularly brilliant performance to his credit. In 1907 at Gloucester, Northamptonshire were put out for 12 runs--the lowest total in first-class cricket--and Dennett took eight wickets for 9 runs, including the hat-trick. His record in the match was fifteen wickets for 21 runs, a feat which he accomplished in the course of one day.

Dennett's bowling was an outstanding feature of Gloucestershire's cricket that season when, with practically everything depending upon him, he rarely failed his side; dismissing 184 batsmen for less than 16 runs each in County Championship matches he was the only cricketer to take 200 wickets in first-class matches. Dennett, like Parker, another slow left-hander, had the distinction of taking all ten wickets in an innings--against Essex at Bristol in 1906--a feat no other Gloucestershire player had achieved until Goddard, last season, dismissed the whole Worcestershire side at Cheltenham for 113 runs.

In an extraordinary day's cricket at Dover in 1912, when thirty wickets fell for 268 runs, Dennett in 20 balls dismissed the last six Kent batsmen without conceding a run.

Dennett served throughout the South African war with the Somerset Light Infantry, played cricket for The Army at Pretoria and kept goal for The Amy at Cape Town. In the Great War he rejoined the Colours, gained a commission and retired with the rank of Captain.

He was an all-round games man, having, in addition to cricket and football, distinguished himself at fives, billiards and shooting. On retiring from county cricket Dennett succeeded W. A. Woof, the former Gloucestershire slow left-hand bowler who died earlier in the year and whose biography also appears in this issue, as coach at Cheltenham College.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack