Christopher Heseltine


Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Heseltine, OBE was a cricketer. Despite not making the XI at Eton or winning a Blue at Cambridge University, he went on to play cricket Hampshire County Cricket Club between 1895, when it became a first-class side, and 1904 and for the Marylebone Cricket Club between 1892 and 1914.
Heseltine, who was predominantly a bowler, also played two Test matches for England against South Africa during Lord Hawke's tour of 1895-96. On his debut, he took five wickets in the second innings against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1896.
He also toured the West Indies and India with Lord Hawke.
Heseltine was appointed a major in the 7th battalion of the Royal Fusiliers on 27 July 1898. Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War, he joined the Imperial Yeomanry as a lieutenant in February 1900, leaving the same month for service in South Africa. After the end of the war, he was in September 1902 appointed an extra aide-de-camp to the Earl of Dudley, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He then rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Fusiliers in the First World War, in which he was twice mentioned in :wikt:dispatch|dispatches. He was also made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. In later life he was President of Hampshire County Cricket Club and served as a member of the committee of the Marylebone Cricket Club.