Obituary: Harold Stanley Weir

Harold Stanley WEIR was born on 23 April 1904 at Croydon Junction, a suburb of Maryborough and later to be known as Baddow, the son of Margaret (nee Bryans) and James Weir. He was educated at the Central Boys State School in Maryborough and after he had completed the state scholarship examination he commenced working in the office of the Woocoo Shire Council, eventually reaching the position of Shire Clerk. On 21 November 1936 he married Dorothy Jean Stevenson and she pre deceased him. There were no children.

A quite aggressive left hand batsman and a left arm bowler of a little above medium pace he played all of his club cricket in Maryborough with Tinana C.C. He twice visited Brisbane with country teams for the annual trial matches, the first in 1929-30 when he gained selection in the Queensland Colts team, and again in the following season. He performed quite usefully in these matches without doing anything outstanding, his top score being 55 for North against South in 1930.

He was a regular Maryborough representative player for several seasons and in 1927 and again in 1931 appeared against the touring teams from New South Wales organised by EL (Gar) Waddy. He did not achieve anything of note in these matches but in 1931 he captured his only wicket in them, having Allan Kippax caught by Dr Otto Nothling in the first of the two matches played in Maryborough. In April 1928 he had one of his better matches when representing Maryborough against a Brisbane XI for he top scored in each innings scoring 27 out of 80 and 36 out of 106 and returned bowling figures of one for 19 and three for 27 in a match won by Brisbane.

In his prime he retained a great degree of fitness and stood a little under six feet in height however in later years he became quite stooped. But he continued his daily walks around Maryborough and was well known to many in and around the city. As time passed his stoop became more acute and his walk became more of a shuffle. In May 2001 he walked into a moving motor vehicle and spent several months in hospital. On discharge he was not able to return to his home, a magnificent old Queenslander located on the top of a hill in Pallas Street, and spent his last days in Fair Haven where he passed away on 11 June 2002.

Stan Weir was very much interested in the history of his home city and its surrounds and he was always a ready source of information when in the mid to late 1970s work was being carried out on the initial search for past Queensland cricketers. He also provided much information on those players who had represented each of Wide Bay and Maryborough in matches against the touring English teams in 1883, 1885 and 1887, as well as of players who had appeared against Victor Trumper's XI in 1906 and in the various matches against Gar Waddy's teams.