“Into the Lion’s Mouth”: The Arrest of Tom Dale

The Royal Horse Guards (Blues) in 1853 (Image: National Army Museum)

In the modern age, the arrest of the captain of an international cricket team would make headlines across the world and generate enormous discussion. Even more so if it took place during a match. And if that captain proved to be someone other than he claimed to be, the repercussions would be huge. And yet all those things passed almost unnoticed during a very low key tour of England and Scotland by a Canadian cricket team in 1880. Only a handful of spectators were present when the man — listed by newspapers and on scorecards as Thomas Jordan — was taken away during the first day of a match against Leicestershire by a sergeant in the Royal Horse Guards and some policemen. Apparently only one journalist was there to see it, but news travelled rapidly afterwards until everyone knew the reason for the arrest: “Jordan” was actually an Englishman called Thomas Dale, wanted for desertion from the Royal Horse Guards eight years previously. And when the details emerged, the story was a strange one.

The Canadians — referred to by CricketArchive as the “Gentlemen of Canada”, but all contemporary reports simply called them “The Canadians” or “The Canadian Team” — were one of two sets of cricketing tourists in England in 1880. Their fellow visitors were an Australian team led by Billy Murdoch. Whereas no Canadian team had visited England before, this was the second “official” Australian team to play in England. In hindsight, the summer was a vital one because towards the end of the tour — after a summer in which they found it difficult to arrange fixtures against quality teams — the Australians played a match against a representative English team which was later recognised as the first Test match played in England.

Owing to the sensational nature of “Jordan’s” unmasking and arrest, the events of the 1880 Canadian tour have proven irresistible to some modern writers and the tale has been retold a few times online or in print. However, these retellings often get important details incorrect. Contrary to the impression given by contemporary sources — and repeated in all subsequent versions of the story — “Jordan” was not the official captain. Instead, the team was nominally led by a 47-year-old cricket enthusiast, the Reverend Thomas D. Phillips. However, Phillips did not arrive in England until the fifth game of the tour, having travelled separately. In his absence, the team was led by the “sub-captain” (i.e. vice-captain), the man who called himself “Jordan”. However, another detail in modern retellings is pure invention, a twisting of the narrative to add drama. It has been suggested that “Jordan” was responsible for organising the team and did a poor job; as a result, the tour was chaotic and unsuccessful. But most of the arrangements were made by the player-manager H. Miller, who was still seeking opposition to fill the fixture list as the team left Canada. In fact, nothing is known about how the tour came about, whose idea it was nor from where its funding originated.

Rev. T. D. Phillips, the actual captain of the 1880 Canadian team (Image: The Canadian Cricketers’ Guide)

The inspiration was almost certainly the successful (and remunerative) tour of the United States and Canada organised by Nottinghamshire’s Richard Daft in 1879. But unlike Daft’s team, or that of the 1880 Australians, the Canadians lacked a certain legitimacy. Only four of the side had been selected for the recent match played between Canada and the United States, a semi-regular series dating back to 1844. And in late May, an apparently well-informed Canadian wrote a letter published in the English press that denounced the entire tour. He revealed that three of the team were living in the United States; seven were English emigrants to Canada; and only five were Canadian. He continued: “Every honest cricketer in Canada scouts the scheme as ridiculous in the extreme. The newspapers are all down on the undertaking, and hope steps may be taken to prevent their playing as the representatives of Canada.” He claimed that only one man (not, incidentally, “Jordan”) “plays well enough to be in a second eleven of county colts, therefore their reception [in England] has not been too enthusiastic”, and that the only hope of any success was that enough money would be taken at the gate to pay the team’s expenses and allow for “an enjoyable pleasure trip”.

There was one curiosity about the anonymous letter that might have raised suspicions had anyone been paying attention. The writer named several players when discussing where they came from; one of these, who he said was based in the United States, he called Dale. But none of the coverage of the tour in the British press listed anyone called Dale as part of the team. Instead, there was someone called “Jordan”; no-one apparently noticed the discrepancy and later writers missed the implication that the Canadians already knew that “Jordan” was the assumed name of Dale. However, the author of the letter was apparently unaware of the origins of Dale/Jordan; he did not include him in the list of English-born players, even though it would shortly emerge that he had been born in Yorkshire.

In the meagre early coverage of the tour, “Jordan” did not stand out. One early article, in the Dundee Evening Telegraph, called him “a most successful bowler and hard hitter, and one of the most thorough cricketers in America”. He performed well enough in the opening four games, taking 33 wickets in the first five games (at an average of around 10), including eight for 70 (and twelve wickets in the match) in then opening game and nine for 54 against Hunslet. He also scored 126 runs at an average of 18, including a fifty against Greenock.

“Jordan” was one of the few successes in the early weeks. The team arrived via boat in Glasgow in May and began the tour in Scotland. After winning their first match, against the West of Scotland, the Canadians drew against Greenock and lost to a team of former pupils of Edinburgh’s Royal High School. Moving into England, the team lost to Hunslet before playing the newly formed minor county Leicestershire — their strongest opposition to that point — in a two-day game beginning on 2 June 1880. The game took place at the ground now known as Grace Road, but then known locally as the Aylestone Park ground (after the area in which it was located).

Overnight rain delayed the start, and play only began at one o’clock. Two of the team — including the official captain, Phillips — had landed in Liverpool the previous evening and arrived in Leicester after play began, taking part as soon as they reached the ground. The only first-hand report on the game — and therefore the only account of the arrest — appeared in the Hinckley News. Leicestershire batted first and were dismissed for 168; “Jordan” took four for 49. When the last wicket fell around 5:15, the Canadians made their way to the changing tent that had been provided. Suddenly, a small group of men quietly surrounded “Jordan”. One of the group was Sergeant Walter Strange of the Royal Horse Guards, the others were plainclothes policemen. Strange, watching the game from the boundary with field glasses, had identified “Jordan” as a deserter from the Royal Horse Guards whose real name was Thomas Dale. As “Jordan” left the field, Strange confronted him, accused him of being Dale and said that he had come to arrest him. “Jordan’s” protestations of innocence did not convince the policemen, who arrested him and took him from the ground with a minimum of fuss. The tiny number of spectators (who numbered under twenty) might not have been aware of what was happening, but “Jordan’s” team-mates were shocked, having been unaware that he was a deserter (even if they had almost certainly known his real name). The shaken team slumped to 36 for six that evening. “Jordan” was replaced in the team with the agreement of the opposition the following day but more rain meant that the match was drawn.

After Jordan/Dale’s arrest, the tour stumbled on for around six weeks. The press were kind, making allowances, but concluded that Canadian cricket was simply not very good, particularly in comparison to the Australians. Two games in Wales were abandoned in the immediate aftermath of the arrest and results remained poor. The team lost heavily to Stockport, the Orleans Club and the Gentlemen of Derbyshire, although they beat the MCC and Surrey Club and Ground by playing with fifteen men against eleven. Even the use of local reinforcements, including the Nottinghamshire professional Walter Wright, could neither improve results nor attract spectators and the team was operating at such a heavy loss that money ran out. A few days after the Canadians played Stourbridge, the tour was abandoned and the remaining fixtures — of which there were several — were abandoned. The final record — played 17, won 5, lost 6, drawn 6 — was underwhelming given the low quality of the opposition.

Meanwhile, Dale faced the consequences of his deception and his desertion. The day after his arrest, he admitted his identity when he appeared before Leicester Police Court, charged with desertion from the 2nd Horse Guards (Blues) on 8 November 1872. It transpired that Dale had been recognised by an officer of the Horse Guards while playing in Scotland. Sergeant Strange had been sent to make the arrest and located him in Leicester. He was remanded in custody by the magistrates until he could be transferred to a military prison for his court martial.

Over the following days and weeks after the arrest, the story emerged in the newspapers, which were eager to report on the sensation. So who was the man who had called himself Thomas Jordan?

Duncombe Park estate in Helmsley (Photo © Carol Rose [cc-by-sa/2.0])

Thomas Dale was born in Helmsley, Yorkshire (although his family listed his birthplace as Rievaulx, a village three miles north-west of Helmsley, next to the ruined Rievaulx Abbey), on 25 December 1847. He was the fourth child of Thomas Dale — listed on the 1851 and 1861 census as an agricultural labourer (although “herdsman” is crossed out on the latter) — and Ann Alenby. The Sunderland Daily Echo gave an account of his earlier years which said that his father was the chief herdsman (censuses from 1861 certainly list him as a herdsman) of the Earl of Faversham, whose extensive family home, Duncombe Park, was located in Helmsley. Although no official sources corroborate this, the census lists the family living at Griff Lodge, which was on the Duncombe Park estate, so it is highly probable that Dale’s father worked for the Earl.

Dale’s military record shows that he enlisted in the Horse Guards in December 1868. Among the details listed were that he was 6 feet and ½ inch tall, with a “fair” complexion, grey eyes and light brown hair. In the aftermath of his arrest, newspapers tried to fill in the background of his time in the military. The Sunderland Daily Echo reported that he “soon became a favourite amongst not only his comrades in the ranks, but the officers as well.” It also said that he excelled in sporting activities, taking part in athletic competitions for his regiment. According to the Hinkley News, Dale was a particularly keen cricketer, and played the Horse Guards against the Household Brigade. The Sunderland Daily Echo reported that Dale had deserted at least one previous time, before his disappearance, after he failed to return to barracks having taken part in a sporting event; it claimed that he soon surrendered himself and was briefly imprisoned.

However, Dale’s military record paints a less wholesome picture. He served only 324 days as a private before his first desertion in November 1869, when he was absent for just over a month. He rejoined his regiment and was sentenced to a week of confinement. The day after his release, he went absent without leave. During this time, he was involved in an incident which resulted in him being arrested for assault; he served just over two months in a civilian prison. After his release in March 1870, he returned to his regiment — perhaps through choice but more likely involuntarily — and was tried once again for desertion. This time, he was sentenced to four months in a military prison.  From July 1870 until November 1872, he appears to have served without incident before the final desertion from Windsor Cavalry Barracks on or around 8 November, after which he fled to the United States.

What happened next can be pieced together from stories that later emerged in the Canadian press. An apparently syndicated article published in Detroit in mid-June 1880 contained details of interviews with members of the Peninsular Cricket Club from that city. They said that Tom Dale had arrived in New Orleans in 1872. This can be corroborated independently because he was certainly in Mississippi, where he married an English woman called Rebecca Small, in 1873. The couple had one son but soon divorced (although there is no record of this). And it appears that Dale headed north from New Orleans because the members of the Peninsular Club believed that soon after his arrival, he found work with the mounted police in St Louis. The suggestion that he worked in some kind of law enforcement capacity was echoed by a report — perhaps copied from the Detroit source — in an English newspaper called The World, which indicated that he had operated close to the Mexican border.

A book called The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America (1998) by Tom Melville includes a few more details, taken from newspapers, about Dale’s life at this time. According to Melville, Dale played professionally for cricket clubs in St Louis and Chicago; he also was given the nickname “Jumbo” because of his size. If we can believe the sources at the Peninsular Club, Dale moved to Canada soon after this; the Detroit article explained that he “had the temerity” to work as a professional for the British officers’ cricket team in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The World went a little further, stating that Dale had been “informally identified” in Canada when he was working as a professional bowler for the Halifax garrison, but “the interests of good cricket had been allowed to prevail over the strict claims of military law, and so he had remained a free man”. However, this might have been a creative reinterpretation of what the members of the Peninsular Club had told the press.

How reliable the sources from the Peninsular Club might have been, they were on more solid ground with the information that in 1876, he moved back across the border to live in Toledo, Ohio, a city around 60 miles from Detroit. And according to their version, in 1877 he accepted a position as a professional cricketer at the Peninsular Club. Possibly their chronology is a little muddled because we know that Dale was married in Toledo in 1878, to a native of that city called Mary Ann Herr. Perhaps he only returned for the wedding.

The 1880 United States census lists Dale and his wife living in Wayne, which was part of Detroit, Michigan. By then, the couple already had two children. However, he gave his occupation as a “truckman”, suggesting that reports that cricket was not his main source of income. Nevertheless, we know that he played for several cricket clubs in this period. CricketArchive records some of appearances for the Peninsular Club, including games against the Australian team that had toured England in 1878 (which travelled home via the United States) and Richard Daft’s team the following year. And the members of the Peninsular Club told journalists that at the time of his arrest, Dale was living with his wife and children in the “Keeper’s House” at the cricket ground.

Clearly, Dale must have been a successful cricketer. There are also indications from the press reports after his arrest that he had played for Canadian clubs, which might account for his invitation to join the tour of England in 1880. For whatever reason, he accepted. By any measure, it seems a strange and unnecessarily reckless decision, particularly if he had indeed been recognised in Halifax. If he hoped that by changing his name, he would avoid detection, he had not reckoned with the determination with which the British army pursued deserters. What made the decision even more baffling was that, according to the article in The World, Dale had been a well-known cricket figure before his desertion, and was easily recognisable on the field owing to his unique bowling action. Therefore it had been an incredible risk (“thrusting his dead into the lion’s mouth” as The World phrased it) to return to England.

When he was indeed recognised while playing in Scotland, it was inevitable that Dale would be arrested. But one syndicated newspaper article published in the United States in mid-June 1880 offered an alternative explanation for his identification. It suggested that Dale had left an English wife when he fled to the United States. According to the article, she had pursued him across the ocean and had him arrested for bigamy following his American marriage. This avenging wife accepted money to divorce him and promised not to reveal his presence to the authorities, but went back on her word and passed on the information that led to his arrest. However, this appears to have been a purely dramatic invention; Dale never married in England (although his first wife was English) and no other contemporary article mentions the involvement of any angry wife. There is no evidence one way or another to indicate whether Dale’s marriage to Herr was bigamous. Yet modern writers have accepted this explanation and indicate that an angry wife reported Dale to the authorities. While not impossible, it seems unlikely.

After Dale had been uncovered and arrested, he spent a few days imprisoned in Leicester before the military authorities arrived. The Leicester Journal reported that, on 8 June: “A party from the 2nd Royal Horse Guards (Blues) arrived in Leicester from London to escort the Canadian cricketer, Dale, back to his regiment, to be tried by court martial. There was a large number of people at the gaol to witness the departure. A cab was used to convey the party to the station, and drove away amidst cheers from the spectators, the cricketer bowing in return.” Ironically, there might have been more people to watch Dale being taken away than watched any of the Canadian team’s games of cricket.

Knightsbridge Barracks as it would have looked in 1880

The only account of what happened next appeared in the Sportsman on 21 June, sourced from a “correspondent” and widely reprinted over the following weeks. Dale’s court martial was held at Knightsbridge and he was sentenced to 36 days in prison. But while in the guard room, he managed to escape until he was recaptured by a civilian. Therefore, another court martial was held immediately and another 300 days added to his sentence. Not every newspaper unquestioningly accepted this tale; for example the Liverpool Albion expressed doubts and suggested that if the tale was true, the officer in charge of the court martial deserved the strongest criticism as the second sentence was vindictive. And his military record tells a slightly different, more likely story: when he was tried after his arrest at Leicester, there is no indication of any attempted escape after sentencing. Instead, his sentence was for exactly 11 months (which amounted to the 336 days reported). Nor would 36 days have been a realistic sentence for someone who had previously already served over two months for desertion. The 1881 census records Dale as an inmate at Millbank, at that time operating as a military prison, with an occupation of “soldier and carman”. He was, curiously, listed as unmarried. Upon his release on 16 May 1881, he was discharged from the Royal Horse Guards; his record listed his “character on being discharged” as “bad” owing to his desertion and civilian sentencing. The cause was listed as “his incorrigible and worthless conduct”. His total service amounted to just three years and 117 days.

With that, Tom Dale disappeared from the newspapers. But he can be traced over the following years through his cricket and through official records, because he returned to live in the United States for the rest of his life. He and his second wife continued to live together, and had more children — nine in total — of whom at least four were born after his release from prison. Dale also resumed playing cricket; he appeared for various teams between 1882 and 1895, including Detroit and Chicago, and made a single first-class appearance when he represented the United States against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia in 1883. According to local obituaries, he also coached the Detroit Athletic Club and was a good swordsman and boxer. The Peninsular Club gave him a benefit in 1883.

By the time of the 1900 census, he and his family were living in another part of Wayne. Dale was listed as a “mailbox repairman”. But the marriage was not a happy one by this stage. His wife began divorce proceedings against him for cruelty in 1904, and the divorce was granted in 1906. No further details are available but between his repeated desertions and his imprisonment for assault in 1869, this divorce is hardly indicative of a sympathetic character. Dale remarried almost immediately. His third wife, Catherine Ashley, was a Canadian thirty years younger than Dale; the wedding took place in Prince Edward, Ontario, but it is unclear whether Dale was living in Canada or went there only for the marriage. By the time of the 1910 United States census, he and his wife had returned to Wayne; Dale was working for the Post Office as a repairman and the couple had a child. A second soon followed — Dale’s eleventh. The 1920 census records the 73-year-old Dale working as a Post Office clerk. He died in February 1921: his cause of death given as senility and he was listed on the death certificate as a master mechanic. He was survived by all of his wives.

Dale’s story is a strange one, and largely inexplicable given how little information survives. Was he a rogue who tried to be too clever? Was he a man whose love of cricket drove him to recklessness? Tempting as it is to imagine this scenario, it is more likely that something else lay behind not only his ill-fated homecoming in 1880, and his odd and convoluted route through the United States and Canada between 1872 and 1880. Unless more sources can be found, the full story will never be truly understood.

“Roving Ronald”: The Troubles and Lies of Ronald Vibart

Ronald Vibart at Harrow in the 1890s (Image: Courtesy of Harrow School Archive)

Ronald Francis Vibart had the world at his feet. Having attended Harrow School, he planned to study at Cambridge University. As a schoolboy cricketer, he had impressed many good judges, including C. B. Fry and Archie MacLaren. Although it was still early in his career, it would have been realistic for him to contemplate first-class cricket for a county or even to imagine playing for England. But something went wrong. For reasons that are unclear, he abandoned Cambridge to spend eight years living in Argentina. When he returned to England, financial problems forced him to forsake his Public School background and become a professional cricketer at a succession of clubs in Cornwall. By the time the First World War broke out, he had been before several courts on a range of criminal charges, from the relatively minor to more serious ones. After 1912, he seems to have avoided trouble for a time, but when war broke out, Vibart’s life quickly fell apart.

It may have been the war itself which precipitated his problems because in the period leading up to it, Vibart seemed to have found some equilibrium. In 1911, at the age of 32, he had married a 16-year-old called Ida Mary Rodda in Falmouth. She was the daughter of a miner who died in Johannesburg in 1896 less than two years after her birth. On the 1901 census, she lived with her mother and stepfather in Camborne. It is not clear how she met Vibart, who up until 1910 had been living with a married woman called Mrs Floyd. And in the first years of his marriage to Ida, Vibart was hardly a family man: it was not long after his marriage that he was arrested for wilful damage, drunkenness and disorderly conduct: he had been drunk and aggressive in several Camborne public houses on the same evening, during which he punched through a glass panel and deliberately sprayed his own blood around a room. But after that, no incidents appeared in newspapers as Vibart continued with his professional cricket. It is possible that he had other work too — he had been dealing cattle before his marriage and attempted to continue this during the war.

In June 1914, he and Ida had their first child; their second followed in July 1915. By then, war had broken out. Amid the expectations of patriotic fervour trumpeted in the press — not least by W. G. Grace, who criticised the continuation of cricket while fighting was taking place — many former public schoolboys joined the army. So many, in fact, that there were several Public Schools’ Battalions, part of what were known as the Pals Battalions — an initiative by which men who signed up together would be allocated to the same battalion, which comprised those from a particular locality. Vibart joined one of these, and was recognised by his former school as one of those who was doing their duty: in November 1914, the Harrovian proudly listed him as a member of the Public Schools’ Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. But Vibart had what can only be described as a turbulent war, one which had nothing to do with heroism or active combat.

Few records survive of Vibart’s war service, but we can recreate a good part of it through his many appearances in court. In one such case, in the unlikely location of Dublin and reported in the Kildare Observer, a sergeant in the Middlesex Regiment gave a few details. Vibart had enlisted in September 1914 in the Public Schools Battalion, but had deserted by February 1915. He returned at an unspecified date, and it is not clear if he faced any punishment. Nor is it quite clear if Vibart saw any active service in the first two years of the war: his regiment did not reach France until November 1915. In the meantime, he was promoted to lance corporal on 1 August 1915 and then to corporal on 24 October 1915. According to a letter from one of his sergeants which was read to that Dublin court, Vibart had worked in the transport section, training “fractious mules” and was “well-liked and respected”.

It was around this time that his regiment went to France. Not long after, Vibart disappeared again and we can trace his progress through the courts. In December 1915, he was arrested for desertion and court-martialled. According to the story as reported in the Cornwall Advertiser (which described him as Private Vibart, of the 5th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment), he had been confronted at home by two sergeants and when he produced his pass to say that he had leave, it was three weeks out of date. Although he protested that he was on a recruiting drive, he was taken away to be court-martialled. Desertions such as this were quite common: of the total number of court-martials during the war (which amounted to over 300,000), 14 per cent were for desertion (of which only 3 per cent were desertions from the field). Military records say that he was sentenced to a year’s detention, but he cannot have served anything like the full amount as he was in France by early 1916; we have no details but perhaps it was a suspended sentence.

Quite a lot of information exists about what happened next, because Vibart soon found himself in trouble again. We next encounter him before a court in Dublin in May 1917, where he gave a lengthy account of how he came to be there in an ultimately futile attempt at mitigation. As related in the Weekly Freeman’s Journal, Vibart explained that he had been serving in France where he was wounded in February 1916 near La Bassée. Although it is quite hard to keep track of where Vibart was — at the same court hearing, he was listed as part of the 6th Battalion, having been described as part of the 5th in 1915 — this does fit with what happened to the Public Schools Regiment. It landed in Boulogne during November 1915, served near La Bassée and suffered heavy casualties there in January and February 1916.

After his injury, Vibart, according to his own account, was “transferred to the 29th Division, and from Albert he was invalided. He was subsequently sent without an orderly and without an escort to Falmouth to the depot and, suffering from mental depression consequent on his condition and expecting he would be discharged from the army, he absented himself without leave. He is at present still an absentee. He came over to Ireland and was engaged in some way in the cattle trade, as he was before he enlisted.” It sounds like Vibart might have been suffering from what became known as shell-shock, or perhaps some kind of post traumatic stress. And yet it is again not quite the full story as he had been demoted to private on 11 August 1916. Vibart’s account is quite sparing with dates: something else must have happened between his injury in February and his undated relocation to Ireland to cause his demotion (which we only know about through the evidence of his former sergeant later in the hearing; he made no mention of it in his own testimony). It is quite likely that he just did not want to fight, decided to desert once more and thought that he might have a chance of avoiding detection in Ireland.

Timothy O’Brien, whose wife was one of VIbart’s victims, photographed in 1895 (Image: Wikipedia)

However, Vibart clearly had no means of making money — other than trading cattle — and so embarked on the first of what would be many cases of attempted fraud. The reason he came before the court in the first place was outlined by the Weekly Freeman’s Journal in May 1917: “Ronald J. Vibart, 34 [sic], stated to be an Englishman, was remanded at Kilcullen, Co. Kildare, on the charge of having obtained £18 from Mrs Sheila Blacker, wife of Major [Frederick] Blacker, by fraud and false pretence. It was alleged he said be had been fighting at the front with Major Blacker.” In his defence, Vibart claimed to have known Major Blacker at Harrow (they were contemporaries and both left the school in 1896), and admitted that he had tried to use the fact to get money. But this was not the only instance because in the Kildare Observer at the end of June 1917, another story appeared. Vibart was additionally charged with obtaining £6 from the wife of the cricketer Sir Timothy O’Brien, whose friend he claimed to be. He told her that he had been wounded, that he had to go before a medical board, and that he was a Second Lieutenant in the 23rd Royal Fusiliers. Whether he knew O’Brien or not, and whether a medical board had been involved, he was certainly not an officer (having just been demoted to private) and was not in the Royal Fusiliers. The prosecution did not pursue this second case as he had pleased guilty to the charge involving Mrs Blacker; it is likely there were other instances that did not come before the court.

Some of Vibart’s friends from England had sent over the money to repay Lady O’Brien and Mrs Blacker, and Vibart outlined how he had come to Ireland in an attempt to explain his actions. But the investigation had uncovered a lot of information which left him without any excuses. A police sergeant from Kilcullen had pieced together a little more background, given in great detail in the Kildare Observer. Vibart was living with his wife and two children “in a furnished cottage at Shankill, Dublin, since he came to Ireland, and had been carrying on a little business in the buying of cattle, on which he got commission.” The police sergeant had also established that he had lived in England and previously “spent a long time in America”. According to the sergeant, Vibart’s family “belonged to a very large firm of stockbrokers in London at one time, and something turned up amongst his family and he was paid off.” But he spent his thousands of pounds “foolishly”. He was entirely cut off from his family. This story matched that which he had told when he was in court at Camborne in 1910 — when he revealed that a woman called Mrs Floyd had spent most of his money — but the idea that he had been “paid off” by his family is new. Perhaps this was connected to either his move to Argentina or his return from it.

Further evidence came from the deposition of a London stockbroker’s clerk that Vibart’s mother had divorced his father; his stepfather Swainson Akroyd had “paid for his education at Harrow, and subsequently sent him to Cambridge.” And the final evidence in a sorry tale came from the sergeant in the Middlesex Regiment, who went through Vibart’s calamitous war record to that point. The judge ruled it a sad case, but sentenced him to six months’ hard labour. His wife was in court, with “a young child in her arms”; she “sobbed bitterly as her husband was removed to the cells below.”

Records survive of his imprisonment at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison. At the time, he was calling himself Ronald F. T. Vibart and claiming a birthdate of 1874 (he was actually born in 1879, but there is no doubt that this is our man). He was listed as a “cattle dealer and soldier”. We also learn his height (5 feet 9.25 inches) and that he had several tattoos (it is not possible to decipher the writing in the prison record book other than the word “woman” a couple of times). The entry states that he was released in October 1917, and he must have returned to England. At around the time he was released (records say September 1917, but either this or the Irish date may be a little fuzzy), he was again court-martialled for desertion, but the sentence of two years’ detention was quashed — although the reason was not recorded, it most likely was related to his time in the Irish prison.

Vibart’s military pension record indicates that he was in the Labour Corps, a unit involved in skilled manual work, but which was not formed until 1917. Perhaps he had been transferred there after his second court-martial. We do not know exactly when Vibart was discharged — a stamp on his pension record is dated October 1921 but he was not in the army in 1920. In any case, he hardly had a distinguished war record — three desertions and two prison sentences — for a former public schoolboy who had been in his school’s rifle corps. And there is just a hint, such as in the judge in Ireland viewing it as a sad case, that he received some leniency owing to his background.

Roland Vibart in 1920 (Image: Lancashire Evening Post, 15 May 1920)

Once the war was over, Vibart made a prolonged attempt to get his life back on track. He and Ida had three more children: in 1919, 1922 and 1929 (although the last died aged only a few months). We also know that his mother died in 1921 and his stepfather in 1925; whether this made any material difference to his life is impossible to say. But he once more turned to professional cricket as a way to earn a living.

The records are a little piecemeal but indicate that Vibart travelled around. We first pick him up in a report in the Lancashire Evening Post in May 1920. This revealed that Vibart had visited Barrow-in-Furness in 1919 and played a game for Vickerstown in which he kept wicket and scored a “dashing” 80 in a game against Furness. This impressed Vickerstown so much that, when the North Lancashire and District League was revived for the 1920 season, they recruited Vibart as their professional.

Jack Burrell, in the first of his articles on Vibart printed in the Cricket Statistician, wrote that Vibart was asked by Captain L. G. Aspinall, who had been the Eton captain when he was at Harrow, to be the professional at Exmouth Cricket club in 1922. He remained there for two years, during which time he also played for the “Bystock Estate XI” at Exmouth in country house matches. Bystock was the residence of a rich owner of coal mines in South Yorkshire. According to Burrell: “Off the field, Vibart led a stormy existence. Persistent financial troubles saw him fall foul of the courts, while there are people in Exmouth to this day [summer 1976] who can remember his being involved in late night drunken brawls outside pubs.”

Also in 1922, he played his only season for Devon in the Minor Counties Championship. He had played for Cornwall before the war, and we do not know why he changed county. His record for Devon was poor: he scored only 69 runs (of which almost half came in an unbeaten innings of 30) at an average of 9.85. Whether he had been living in Devon long enough to qualify is uncertain, but in any event this was his final season in the Minor Counties Championship.

We have one other insight into his life in this period. Vibart wrote to the Western Morning News and Mercury in June 1921 concerning some criticism in the letters pages of that newspaper regarding the Rector of Camborne church over controversial alterations to the building. Vibart defended the rector quite strongly, “no matter his private idiosyncrasies”. Had Vibart identified a kindred spirit? More interesting is how he signed the letter: “Ronald Vibart MA, Cambridge 1897, Trinity Hall.” Aside from this outright fabrication — he had not received any qualifications from Cambridge as he left after just one term — he gave his address as Roskear, Camborne. Around the same time, he had occasional brushes with the law: later that month, he was fined for owning a dog without a licence, and in 1922, he was fined £5 for receiving stolen goods (although the Camborne court was satisfied that he was not involved with the associated burglary).

Heversham Grammar School photographed c. 1910 (Image: Heversham: A Website History)

There is also a record in the local press of him playing for Chard Cricket Club in Somerset at the end of June 1924, when he had seven catches and seven stumpings from six matches. The continued movement between Cornwall and Cumbria may have been exhausting, and after a time he appears to have settled in the latter location. Jack Burrell, in his second article on Vibart, mentioned a letter he had received from a former pupil at Heversham School in Cumbria which revealed that Vibart had been the cricket professional there (although Burrell does not give any dates, a contemporary newspaper report in the Western Morning News reveals that he was at Heversham in 1926). Burrell suggests that Vibart had family connections in the area, but does not expand on this.

According to the correspondent, Vibart’s nickname at Heversham was “Roving Ronald”. He had been “a rather mysterious, well-spoken man, grey faced, broad shouldered and rather morose, but when he found a cricket bat in his hand, a different happy light shone in his eyes.” Occasionally, he appeared at net practice while drunk, when he would balance half crowns on the stumps, with the instruction: “Now young gentlemen — just you try to bowl me out. If you do, you get the money.”

But Vibart was popular with the pupils, who did their best to shield him from the authorities when he was not sober. Burrell also found an article in the Heversham School magazine by an “Old Boy” which recalled how Vibart sometimes sat on the roller at the end of a day and shared stories about his time at Harrow. Apparently one of his less likely claims was to have had a fight with Winston Churchill at Harrow, but as Churchill was five years older than Vibart, this almost certainly did not happen.

Burrell wrote that Vibart held the position at Heversham for two years, but was eventually left without lodgings; the local pub by that stage refused to serve him. Again, dates are a little uncertain, but John Wilson, the former secretary of Haverigg Cricket Club of the North Lancashire and District League, wrote to Burrell in 1983 to say that his club had “borrowed” Vibart for one game in the 1925 season. He was so effective that the club employed him for 1926 at £4 per week; although this was far less than leading players in county or league cricket could command, it was a respectable amount for a professional in the period. He lodged with the secretary, who remembered one time that Vibart failed to return home as expected for lunch; he had drunk twenty pints in the local pub without paying. When he left the club, there were debts scattered around Haverigg, but the secretary still held a favourable opinion of him. That season, Vibart scored 193 runs at 16.50; Haverigg finished bottom of the league. Nevertheless, news reached Cornwall of Vibart’s performances, prompting an article in the Cornish Post and Mining News which fondly reminisced about his time at Camborne. He was also selected as wicket-keeper in a representative North Lancashire League team to play Cumberland County Cricket Club.

What Vibart did between 1926 and 1930 is not clear, although Burrell suggests he played for Taunton Cricket Club. But Vibart’s cricket career was coming to an end. His remaining years — and there were not to be many of them — were dominated by personal problems. Because as his marriage broke down, Vibart descended into a spiral from which he would never recover.