Harold Gimblett

Harold Gimblett (19 October 1914 – 30 March 1978) was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. He was known for his fast scoring as an opening batsman and for the much-repeated story of his debut. In a book first published in 1982, the cricket writer and Somerset historian David Foot wrote: "Harold Gimblett is the greatest batsman Somerset has ever produced." Gimblett is a member of the Gimblett family, an Anglo-French family who arrived in Britain in the early 18th century from Metz. The family spread out over Britain, with branches located in Somerset, Scotland, and South Wales. There are variations of the spelling of the name, including Gimlet, Gimlette, and Gimblette.

Gimblett scored at a fast rate throughout his career, and hit 265 sixes – "surely a record for a regular opening batsman", wrote Eric Hill, his postwar opening partner and thereafter a long-time journalist watcher of Somerset. He appeared, however, in only three Tests, none of them against Australia, and he left first-class cricket abruptly, suffering from mental health problems that would remain with him to the end of his life.

Harold Gimblett was born at Bicknoller in the Quantock Hills in west Somerset, where his family had been farmers since the 15th century. He was the youngest of three brothers and was educated at the local school at Williton and then at the fee-paying West Buckland School just over the border in Devon.

He played cricket successfully at school and for Watchet Cricket Club. In 1931, he left school; in August of that year, he made the first of his significant innings. In the match between Watchet and Wellington Cricket Club, he came to the wicket with Watchet on 37 for seven, chasing a total of 160. With another teenage batsman, Allan Pearse, Gimblett hit off the runs, making 91 himself. A year later, he was co-opted into the Somerset Stragglers team, a peripatetic amateur team which played matches across south west England, composed of former public school players of varying abilities, some of whom were the amateurs who formed a large contingent of Somerset county players up to the Second World War. In his first match for the Stragglers team, against Wellington School, he made 142 in 75 minutes.

Gimblett briefly moved to London to work, but city life was not to his taste and he returned home, resuming cricket for the Watchet club. One of the patrons of Watchet cricket, the town tailor W. G. Penny, who was also prominent in Somerset County Cricket Club, recommended him for a trial with the county, though there appears to have been some reservations over his temperament and his impetuous batting. There is also, in the same source, some suggestion that Gimblett himself was reluctant to test himself against top-class cricketers.

Even so, at the start of the 1935 season, Gimblett was invited to go to Taunton for a two-week trial with the county. The trial seems not to have been a success, but it led directly to the sensation that was Gimblett's first-class cricket debut.

Gimblett's entry into first-class cricket in May 1935 was instant legend. Wisden, in its obituary of him in 1979, wrote: "The start of his career was so sensational that any novelist attributing it to his hero would have discredited the book."

Having a two-week trial with Somerset, Gimblett had been told, before the period was over, that he had no future as a first-class cricketer. Accounts vary as to how this decision was reached. Gimblett himself, quoted in David Foot's biography, which relies heavily on material taped by Gimblett in the years immediately before his death, said he was told by the county secretary and former captain, John Daniell: "You may as well finish the week. We'll pay you 35 shillings and your bus fare. Afraid you're just not good enough." Daniell's son, quoted in the same book, said that the Somerset professional players had advised against taking Gimblett on to the county staff: "They used to tell my father they thought Harold was far too impulsive." A further factor may have been the almost permanent financial crisis that surrounded Somerset: the county club was probably not able to afford another professional player.