“Probably the best all-round man in the team”: The continuing adventures of Snuffy Browne

The West Indies team to England in 1923. Standing: J. A. Small, V. Pascal, J. K. Holt, R. H. Mallett (Manager), R. L. Phillips, M. P. Fernandes, C. V. Hunter, G. John. Sitting: G. A. R. Dewhurst, C. R. Browne, G. Challenor, H. B. G. Austin (Captain), R. K. Nunes (Vice captain), P. H. Tarilton. On ground: G. Francis, L. N. Constantine, H. W. Ince.

Cyril Rutherford Browne, known generally by his nickname of Snuffy Browne, first played for the West Indies before the First World War. He came from a prosperous and influential Barbados family, and had been a cricketing prodigy when he was one of the few black pupils at Harrison College. But after making his breakthrough in the Barbados team, he moved to England to study law at the Middle Temple in London, where he was called to the bar in 1914. Two years later he moved to British Guiana, almost certainly to work with his brother — the politician, barrister and King’s Counsel Philip Nathaniel Browne, who had moved to Guiana around ten years previously.

Although he had already played for Barbados, Browne was a certain selection for the weak British Guiana team that competed in the Intercolonial Tournament when it resumed in September 1921. It is from around this time that we get a sense of how influential and unusual Browne was. In the West Indies region in this period, the most important government positions, the majority of the wealth and all the influence was held by white Europeans. For Browne’s family to have been among the small emerging black middle class was remarkable enough. But cricket in the region was particularly white-dominated. Captains, selectors and administrators were exclusively white, as were most specialist batsmen. Black cricketers, including those who played for the West Indies team, came from less-than-affluent backgrounds and lacked social or cricketing influence.

Of the black players in the 1923 West Indies team, George Francis was a groundsman, Joseph Small was a storekeeper and Learie Constantine was a clerk working for a solicitor. While we do not know the non-cricketing occupations of Victor Pascall or George John, their clubs in Trinidad were categorised by C. L. R. James in Beyond a Boundary as comprising the lower-middle classes and lower classes. Those more willing to stand up for themselves, such as Herman Griffith or Wilton St Hill, were not selected.

And then there was Browne: a barrister, educated at an elite school, who had trained in England and played in the rarified atmosphere of amateur club cricket in London. Even more remarkably, when British Guiana played in that first Intercolonial Tournament after the war, Browne was chosen to lead the team. He was the first black captain of a first-class team in the West Indies; as his appointment may have ruffled a few feathers, he was also the last for a long time. In Cricket and I (1933), Learie Constantine recalled rumours that “there had been some skilful in-fighting before [the captaincy] was given to him.” But the very fact that Browne held the role briefly when no other black cricketer came close to such a role demonstrates how influential and highly regarded he was. This was not confined to the field of play either; he also captained his local club in Guiana and acted as vice-president of the selection committee for the first-class team.

Perhaps the clearest indication of his importance came in 1922, when Arthur Somerset, who had captained the MCC team against whom Browne had played in 1911, began to make enquiries about a West Indies team visiting England for the first time since 1906. He initially made contact with Browne, rather than any official bodies; Browne passed the suggestion on to Archie Wiles of Trinidad.

Browne’s experience was hugely atypical for a black cricketer in this period, and it may be revealing that in later years his influence seems to have receded in the cricketing sphere. If we can believe the rumour that Constantine reported in Cricket Crackers (1950), Trinidad made an unofficial protest that British Guiana had a black captain, and Browne was replaced without any fanfare.

Cyril Browne in 1923 (from the West Indies team photograph)

When the Intercolonial Tournament was next held, this time in British Guiana in September 1922, the home team were captained by Clarence Hunter. In this match, five Guiana players made their first-class debut, although one of them was the future Test player Maurice Fernandes, and the batting was again poor. Only Hunter passed fifty in the match, but the game was closer than it had been twelve months previously. Browne took six for 40 on the first day to bowl Trinidad out for 107; in reply, Guiana only made 133. Browne took five for 67 in Trinidad’s second innings of 190, but needing 164 to win, Guiana lost by 29 runs. Both his first innings return and his eleven wickets in the game were the best of Browne’s career until then. However, his batting continued to disappoint at first-class level; he scored just 5 and 0 in the match, the latter when he was promoted to number five in the second innings. For Trinidad, Victor Pascall also took eleven wickets, but the outstanding batting came from Joe Small who scored 33 and 82.

It is slightly uncertain what Browne was bowling at this time. In earlier years, he was undoubtedly a wrist-spinner. But after the war, he was often categorised as “medium pace”. He opened the bowling for British Guiana, and continued to do so for many years. The most likely explanation is that he took the new ball and bowled inswing, then bowled brisk leg-spin and googlies later in the innings. His heavy workload indicates that he mainly bowled spin.

The big event dominating everyone’s mind at this time was the upcoming tour of England by a West Indies team during the 1923 season. Each colony was allocated a certain number of places, and in December 1922, British Guiana selected its four representatives. Browne was an obvious choice. Of the others picked, Maurice Fernandes proved to be a success, but Clarence Hunter only played two first-class matches on the tour (and five games in total). Even R. H. Mallett, who wrote an extensive account of the tour in the Cricketer could find nothing to say about Hunter except that he only batted “under conditions which did not enable him to appear to advantage”, and was more often to be found watching from the pavilion. The final choice, J. R. Phillips, was unable to tour at all.

Browne had an advantage over many of his team-mates: he knew English conditions from his time playing there between 1912 and 1914. And he was extremely successful with the ball. He bowled far more overs than anyone, and in all matches took 91 wickets at an average of 20.74; if he was only fifth in the averages, only the fast bowler George Francis took more wickets. In first-class games, he took 75 wickets — again, second only to Francis, and fourth in the averages — in 18 games at 22.29. This placed him respectably high in the list of first-class bowling averages for the published in Wisden; he was 49th, in the vicinity of several Test bowlers playing county cricket that season. His batting was less successful; he scored 24 not out, his highest innings in first-class cricket until then, in the last match of the tour, but averaged just 10.75 in first-class games.

Embed from Getty Images

The West Indies team that toured England in 1923. Back row: George Francis, Victor Pascall, Learie Constantine, Harry Ince, Maurice Fernandes, Cyril Browne, J. K. Holt and R. H. Mallett (manager). Front tow: Joseph Small, George John, Karl Nunes, George Challenor and Tim Tarilton.

Browne made a slow start, but found his form with the ball in matches against the minor counties of Durham and Northumberland. Against Nottinghamshire, he took his best first-class figures of seven for 97, followed by eight wickets in each of the matches against Leicestershire and Warwickshire. His good form lasted until the end of the tour when he took five for 85 against Gloucestershire, four for 41 in an impressive win over Surrey and six for 66 against Somerset. In the penultimate match, Browne took four for 45 against Worcestershire. Fred Root, a professional for that county, claimed in his 1936 autobiography that he taught Browne to bowl inswing in half-an-hour during that game. But Root’s book is often unreliable and this should be treated with caution; it is clear that, despite Root’s claim, Browne had used this style earlier in the tour. It is strange — albeit fairly typical — that Root tried to claim some credit for teaching Browne the “most dangerous ball” he possessed that season.

The reporters for Wisden were not, however, overly impressed with Browne. The almanack had little to say about any specific performances of his, and summarised his tour: “Browne (right hand medium pace) … bowled well without rising to any special distinction when opposed to the best batting.” The team manager, the Englishman R. H. Mallett, went into more detail in The Cricketer. He observed:

“On nearly all occasions, [Browne] bowled better than his figures and was not favoured by much luck. He was not suited by the soft wickets in the early part of the Tour, but under such conditions he generally kept batsmen playing, and his length was so good that a batsman was never able to take liberties with him.”

He noted that several catches went down off Browne’s bowling in the opening games which, if taken, would have given him a hundred wickets for the tour. Mallett also stated: “He has an attractive action, and never appeared to get tired.” The manager observed that his batting failed to meet the expectations arising from his performances at home, but wondered if he was hampered by the amount of bowling he had to do; Mallett noted that his best innings came in the final match where he had not bowled much, and therefore came fresh to batting.

Browne going out to bat at Scarborough in 1923 (Image: Leeds Mercury, 4 September 1923)

Like several of the team, Browne’s success in England inspired him to even better performances afterwards. In February 1924 British Guiana again lost to Trinidad in the Intercolonial Tournament. Browne failed to score runs batting in the top order, but took six for 30 in the second innings and had match figures of ten for 111.

However, 1924 was perhaps more notable for Browne’s involvement in off-field events in British Guiana. In late March and early April, a workers’ strike and subsequent demonstration in Georgetown led to civil unrest which culminated in a combined group of police and military opening fire on the crowd, killing thirteen protesters and wounding twenty-four others. These events, known to historians as the Ruimveldt Workers’ Incident, tangentially involved Browne and his brother Philip, the latter at one point playing quite an important role. The strike had been called by the British Guiana Labour Union. In the early stages of the protest, Philip Browne approached the Chamber of Commerce to negotiate on behalf of the Union; the meeting to discuss this was held in the offices of Cyril. Later, Cyril accompanied one of the leaders of the strike to a tense conference with the Inspector General of Police.

Philip Browne continued to be involved in the aftermath of the events. After order had been restored following the shootings, Philip attempted to intervene by making a suggestion, rejected by the Governor, of a Board of Inquiry to look into the workers’ grievances. The Governor did agree to appoint a commission to investigate the conditions for workers, and Philip was to be one of the members. Philip was also appointed to a committee which recommended the creation of a Labour Exchange Bureau for workers. After this, we lose track of him, but he must have been dead by 1944 as he is absent from that edition of Who’s Who in British Guiana.

Afterwards, cricket may have come as something of a relief to Browne. The next Intercolonial Tournament was held in Barbados in October 1925. British Guiana played Barbados for the first time since Browne moved there (he had appeared against them once, in a non-first-class match the 1923 West Indies team played on their way home). It inspired an astonishing all-round performance.

When Barbados batted first, Browne took five for 77 as the home team reached 230. Then, batting at number six, he scored his maiden first-class century, hitting 102 runs (scored out of 144 runs while he was batting) in a total of 374; his previous best score at that level had been his 24 not out, and his average with the bat after 30 matches was 9.82. When Barbados batted again, although he was struggling with an injury (the Cricketer’s brief report said that was “lame during the second half of the game”), he produced the best bowling figures of his career, taking eight for 58 in 35 overs. His match figures were thirteen for 135. British Guiana were able to score the 62 runs they needed to win by eight wickets. As a result, they reached the final of the tournament for the first time since 1900.

On a more personal note, Browne also faced his brother Allan for the first time in a first-class match. Unlike Philip and Cyril, Allan had remained in Barbados and appears to have taken over the jewellery business that had been started by Philip before he relocated to Guiana. On this occasion the younger brother definitely came out on top; Allan was caught off Cyril’s bowling for 23 in the first innings, and if Cyril did not dismiss him in the second, he was the fielder who caught him after he had scored 62.

The final was, however, an anticlimax for Browne; he made a pair (run out in the second innings) and his bowling was unusually expensive. Possibly still struggling with his injury, he took four for 116 from 45 overs in the first innings as Trinidad established a first innings lead of 32 through centuries from Joe Small and Wilton St Hill. Small and Learie Constantine then bowled British Guiana out for 214 to leave Trinidad needing just 183 to win. In a tight finish, Trinidad won by just two wickets; they scored the runs in just 47.2 overs, and Browne conceded two for 60 from his 15.2 overs.

The West Indies team for the first “Test” of the 1926 MCC tour, played at Barbados. Back Row: George Francis, Cecil Nascimento, Victor Pascall, Teddy Hoad, Joe Small, James Parris. Front Row: Wilton St Hill, Tim Tarilton, George Challenor, Harold Austin (captain), Cyril Browne, George John (Image: The Cricketer, 1 May 1926).

His loss of bowling form continued in January 1926 when a strong MCC team visited the West Indies. He played in all three representative games in a West Indies team featuring many of those who toured England in 1923; but his eight wickets came at an average of 42.50, and he conceded 340 runs from 102.4 overs. However, he continued to show vastly improved batting form. After scoring a duck in the rain-affected first “Test” in Barbados, he made 74 in 55 minutes (hitting twelve fours and a six) in the second, played at Trinidad.

A correspondent for the Times later wrote an article about the game which was part travelogue and part match report. After extolling the virtues of Trinidad as a place to visit, he noted the excitement surrounding the rapidly improving standard of the West Indies team, and observed the large crowds that attended the game. He evidently enjoyed the experience, but noted that the West Indies team made tactical errors at the end of the game. The MCC team were chasing runs against the clock, but when the extra half-hour (a standard practice in English first-class cricket in which an extra thirty minutes could be played at the end of the match if a result was possible) was taken, the West Indies fell apart. The fast bowlers pitched bouncers too short to trouble the batsmen and Browne was put to bowl outside leg stump (“legside drivel” as the Times correspondent put it) with a legside field to frustrate the batsmen; but one of his overs cost thirteen runs so it was not a successful tactic. The MCC won comfortably by five wickets.

Browne’s best performance came in the final “Test”, played in British Guiana, when he scored 102 not out, including eleven fours. He briefly retired hurt on 83 when struck on the temple by a short ball from the occasional bowler Lionel Tennyson. He was actually unconscious for a time and had to be carried inside. He resumed his innings soon after, but once more had to retire hurt when he had scored just five more runs; he completed his century after a more successful third resumption. The West Indies made the MCC follow on, but could not force a win; had Browne been in better form with the ball, they would probably have won. But Browne topped the home batting averages in the “Tests” with 189 runs at an average of 63.00. However, he failed to shine for British Guiana against the MCC, scoring 39 and 15 and being wicketless in 74 overs across the two matches.

The form of the West Indies team in 1923 and 1926 led to growing calls for them to play Test cricket. Even English critics accepted that they deserved a chance; for example, “The Gentleman in Black”, writing in the Athletic News after the 1926 MCC tour, observed that the team was a strong one, and he considered that the biggest development since the 1923 tour was “the great development as a batsman of C. R. Browne … Today, he is probably the best all-round man among our opponents.”

Later in 1926, at a meeting of the Imperial Cricket Conference, the West Indies were awarded Test status and a tour of England was arranged, to take place in 1928, in which the team would play its first Tests.

Karl Nunes

George Dewhurst

Frederick Grant

Three contenders for the captaincy of the 1928 West Indies team (Image of Nunes from The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

From the first discussions of the team composition in the press, Browne was regarded as a certainty. In fact, he was one of the few players selected for the team who did not play in any of the three trial matches — for which he was presumably unavailable. But there was a great deal of speculation over who would be included in the team, and not least who would captain it. The long-standing West Indies captain Harold Austin had retired after the 1926 MCC tour, and most commentators expected Karl Nunes, his vice-captain in 1923, to take over. Some Trinidad newspapers agitated for either Frederick Grant or George Dewhurst to be chosen instead. However, by far the best qualified candidate, both in terms of experience and achievement on the field, was Browne. Yet such was the attitude in West Indian cricket in this period that his name was not even mentioned in passing.

While speculation about the team raged, Browne himself contributed a long, thoughtful article which appeared across two issues of Guiana’s Sporting Times in July 1927. He discussed the likeliest members of the team — he got many, but not all, of his choices correct — and even wrote modestly of himself:

“BROWNE — And lastly the writer may expect inclusion. His friends and admirers think he has improved as a batsman and that he should get runs next year. All that he can say is that he hopes so too. His friends also say that his bowling has again reached its former standard during the last and present seasons and year: they wish him his usual success in that department. The writer will be thankful for the opportunity of playing once more on English grounds and will try to merit all good wishes and hopes.”

Browne did not hold back in his opinions, and wrote freely and confidently about all the players. He even weighed into the ongoing captaincy debate, arguing that Austin would still have been the best captain but that Nunes (alongside Tim Tarilton of Barbados as his vice-captain) should be appointed; he thought that when Nunes had led the team in Austin’s absences in 1923, he “was a splendid captain who perhaps allowed the responsibility of captaincy to affect his batting … nor do I think that there is anyone of the 1923 team who would not willingly and gladly play under his leadership. The writer would welcome it, and so would all the others he should think.” Whether Browne maintained that view through the duration of the 1928 tour is more questionable…

The remarkable life of Snuffy Browne

Snuffy Browne, probably in 1928 (Image: The Complete Record of West Indian Test Cricketers (1991) by Bridgette Lawrence and Ray Goble)

Many years ago, a West Indies cricketer moved to England to study law and to play club cricket. He was a devastating bowler and attacking batsman; a star for the Test team; a man whose captaincy ambitions were severely limited owing to the racism in West Indian cricket; and a man who later in life became involved in politics. At first sight, this looks like the well-known story of Learie Constantine. But in this case, we are talking not about Constantine but an earlier star. Cyril Browne, known generally as “Snuffy” Browne, played for the West Indies between 1911 and 1930. Like Constantine, he dominated matches; like Constantine, he was far more than just a cricketer. Yet during his lifetime, he was never as famous as Constantine; nor has he attracted the same interest among cricket writers and historians. But in many ways, Browne’s story challenges assumptions about race, class and cricket in the West Indies during the early twentieth century.

Cyril Rutherford Browne was born on 8 October 1890 in Robert’s Tenantry, St Michael, Barbados, the fourth son of Philip Browne and his wife Josephine Pilgrim. His father was originally a mechanical engineer and a contractor, but later became a merchant. Two of Cyril’s brothers also became well-known. His eldest brother Philip Nathaniel was a barrister who studied at the Middle Temple in London between 1893 and 1896; he also established a successful jewellery business in Barbados. He was to prove hugely influential in Cyril’s life. His other brother, Chester Allan (known as Allan), was closer to Cyril in age, being only two years older than him, and shared his talent on the cricket field. A third brother became an Government Ophthalmologist, but details are scarce about him. Allan and Cyril were educated at Combermere School, before moving to Harrison College.

Modelled on Eton College in England, Harrison College catered for the Barbados elite; this perhaps indicates how prosperous the Browne family were. Other alumni included the future West Indies batsman George Challenor and the hugely influential future England captain Pelham Warner. Cyril Browne attended from around 1904 until 1910. At this time, most pupils at Harrison were white; there were few black families in Barbados sufficiently wealthy to afford the school’s fees. Cyril and Allan, therefore, would have been very much in a minority.

Harrison College, Barbados (Image: Old Harrisonian Society)

Sport was very important at Harrison College, and it had a strong cricket team in which both Cyril and Allan played. The school team took part in the local competition, comprehensively covered each season by the Barbados Cricket Annual. Browne was viewed as something of a cricketing prodigy. Although I was unable to access the annual for Browne’s first seasons there, by the time of the 1907–08 annual, when Allan had already left school, Browne was described as “a bowler of certainly high and remarkable merit” who “is the genuine stuff that baffles the best men when well set. We look forward to him as the island’s rising star.” He topped both the batting and bowling averages for the team; the author of the Harrison College section of the annual said that Browne was their best batsman and bowler and “undoubtedly a representative bowler at the present time.” Additionally, he was near the top of the batting and bowling averages for the whole island. Already then, Browne must have been close to selection for the Barbados team. Many former Harrison pupils went on to play for the island, including Allan, who made his first-class debut for Barbados in September 1907.

But Browne continued to develop his bowling. In the 1907–08 season, he began to bowl googlies. The delivery was still relatively new, having come to prominence when Bernard Bosanquet used it with some success in Test cricket in 1904 and 1905. When the South African team that toured England in 1907 included four googly bowlers, the delivery became part of the cricketing mainstream.

Therefore, Browne was very much at the forefront of those who adopted googly bowling early on, along with players such as Kent’s Douglas Carr, or the Australian Test bowler H. V. Horden. In an interview with London’s Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in September 1912, he revealed that he began to practice googlies at the age of seventeen and said that his bowling transformation was partly influenced by the Barbados first-class cricketer Percy Goodman, who had toured England with the West Indies teams of 1900 and 1906 (although he gave no details of what this influence might have involved).

Percy Goodman, pictured in 1900, helped Browne to develop his googly (Image: Wikipedia)

What makes this slightly remarkable is that no googly bowlers had come to the West Indies by that date, so Browne was working blind. Goodman may possibly have seen it bowled in England in 1906, and may have been able to advise. Another possibility is that Browne saw it himself while on tour with the Harrison cricket team; it appears that the College toured England sometime around 1905, although there appear to be no surviving concrete records. But however he came to learn of googlies, he was working with very little guidance.

It took Browne a year to master the delivery, and he dared not use it in a match for at least another twelve months, by which stage he was already a first-class cricketer. In January 1909, at the age of eighteen and while still a schoolboy, Browne made his debut for Barbados when they defeated British Guiana in the Intercolonial Tournament, held that year in Barbados. He played alongside his brother Allan; other team-mates included Goodman and Harold Austin, who had been captain of the 1906 West Indies team. Browne retained his place for the final, when George Challenor, another 1906 tourist, joined the team. Barbados defeated Trinidad to win the tournament, but Browne’s role was limited as he scored just 23 runs in two innings batting at number eight and took seven wickets in the two games. For his school that season, although his batting declined considerably, he still topped both sets of averages and was the team’s Secretary and Treasurer.

When the Intercolonial Tournament was next held — in Trinidad in January 1910 — Browne retained his place and had more success with the ball, taking seven wickets in his side’s only game (in the Intercolonial Tournament, the defending champions faced the winner of a play-off between the other two teams). The Barbados Cricket Annual judged him the best bowler on the team. Yet Trinidad won by a convincing margin. Meanwhile, in his last year at Harrison, Browne was second in the bating averages but comfortably topped the bowling averages; the writer of the school’s report judged him to be the best bowler in Barbados. Although we do not know precisely when he first used the googly in competitive games, but his improved record with the ball both for Harrison and Barbados might suggest that he did so during the 1909–10 season.

After leaving Harrison College, Browne joined Spartan Cricket Club for 1910–11. Spartan was the first non-white cricket club in Barbados, formed in the early 1890s for the emerging black middle and upper-middle classes based in towns and cities. An article on sport in Barbados written by Brian Stoddart in 2006 states that the Spartan membership: “consisted mostly of lawyers, medical practitioners, elite schoolmasters, higher level civil servants and the few non-whites to have penetrated the managerial levels of the business, commercial and plantation worlds.” Players for the club often gravitated towards politics.

When Browne joined, his brother Allan was the club’s captain and headed the batting averages for the season. Browne was third batting and second in bowling, albeit with almost double the number of wickets of the next man. The report in the Barbados Cricket Annual praised him as “a host in himself”. By this stage, he had perfected his googly, which drew attention that September, when British Guiana hosted the Intercolonial Tournament (The Barbados Cricket Annual noted that he had been dubbed the “googly merchant”). This was Browne’s breakthrough. He opened the bowling — later in his career, he usually bowled medium-paced swing with the new ball and then switched to spin, and this may have begun here. Against the home team, he took three for 11 and five for 26 to play a key role in Barbados’ eight-wicket win; then in the final, he had match figures of six for 52 as his team crushed Trinidad by an innings.

Browne maintained this form when a weak MCC team under the captaincy of Arthur Somerset visited the West Indies a few months later in February 1911. In the first of two games Barbados played against them, he took two for 16 and four for 43 as his team won by an innings. In the return game, he took six for 60 and ten wickets in the match as Barbados again won by an innings.

This was good enough for Browne to be selected for the combined West Indies team that played the MCC in Barbados; his eight wickets in the match could not prevent an MCC victory by five wickets. However, he retained his place when the MCC went to British Guiana and again faced a representative West Indies side. This time, Browne managed just three expensive wickets as West Indies lost by four wickets.

Georgetown Cricket Club Ground (also known as Bourda), where British Guiana played home games, in an undated photograph (Image: Stabroek News)

Originally, the MCC’s next match was scheduled to be a return match against British Guiana (whom they had played before the representative game), but the authorities decided it would be more interesting to arrange another match against a West Indies team. However, when the selectors left out the Barbados batsman Frederick Archer, Browne and his fellow Barbadian Will Gibbs withdrew at the last moment in protest. Browne’s actions drew adverse comment in the local press; an editorial in the Daily Argosy said:

“The action of the Barbados players, looked at in any light, is not sport. They came here to play alone in the Test match [sic], and they played. The match which was commenced yesterday … was not to be a Test match, and in giving the team the title of ‘A West Indian XI’, the Committee did so because they had included in the team selected some of the players from other colonies. It was not the duty on the part of the Committee to choose every one of the players who had come from the other colonies.”

The author stated that Archer’s poor performances meant that it was “inevitable” he would be left out, and “therefore the action of the other Barbados men, Browne and Gibbs, is a regrettable instance of undoubtedly bad form.”

Browne had nevertheless clearly improved enormously. In his six matches that season, he had taken 41 wickets at an average of 13.53 (the next highest number of first-class wickets by West Indian players in the 1910–11 season was just 25); while his batting was less effective at this higher level — his highest score in nine first-class matches to that point was 19, and he was averaging a touch over seven — he looked to have established himself as a top cricketer. Certainly the English cricketers regarded him as the best bowler they faced. Arthur Somerset, the captain of the MCC team, remained friends with Browne.

But this was Browne’s last first-class match for ten years, and he never played for Barbados again. Instead, he moved to England where he studied to become a barrister at the Middle Temple in London. He arrived in Southampton in August 1911 and was admitted to the Middle Temple that October; his admission record stated that he lived at 331 Croxted Road, Herne Hill, and was the fourth son of “Philip B[rowne] of Barbados, Gent”. Apart from a brief comment in the section on Spartan Cricket Club, the Barbados Cricket Annual made no comment about his departure for England.

If studying law was Browne’s reason for leaving Barbados, he also managed to increase his fame as a cricketer in front of a whole new audience. He began to play regularly in London club cricket, where he made an immediate impression. There was no league structure in the south of England; clubs played a series of friendly matches, but there was nothing at stake except pride. Against the amateur batsmen who played these games, Browne’s googly bowling was deadly, but he also proved highly effective with the bat.

In between his studies, he seems to have found plenty of time to play cricket, and appeared for various clubs. His profile in a 1944 edition of Who’s Who in British Guiana states that he was a member of Eastbourne and Hastings cricket clubs, which most likely dates from this time (Another C. R. Browne also played in that area during 1911; he was an unrelated 18-year-old who later played for Sussex and Cambridge University).

Snuffy Browne in a posed photograph taken in 1912, when he was playing regularly for Clapham Ramblers (Image: Cricket, 27 July 1912)

But Browne’s main club was the Clapham Ramblers, for whom his record was extraordinary. In 1912, he scored 618 runs at an average of 29.42; although he narrowly missed heading the club averages, the next highest number of runs for the team was just 451. He made several centuries. With the ball, he took 102 wickets at 8.92; again, he did not head the club averages, but was responsible for almost half of the 212 wickets they took. At the club’s annual dinner over the winter, he was presented with the ball with which he had taken his hundredth wicket; it had been specially mounted. Browne usually opened the bowling with another West Indian cricketer, J. A. Veerasawmy of British Guiana. The latter, a left-arm spin bowler, was also in England to study at the Middle Temple, and played club cricket for various teams between 1911 and 1913. Veerasawmy qualified as a barrister and on his return to British Guiana founded what is now called Everest Cricket Club, and was hugely influential in promoting cricket among people of Indian ancestry.

Browne made quite an impression among London cricketers. As well as the interview with the Illustrated London News which described how he had learned to bowl the googly, he featured in a longer profile in Cricket in July 1912 which called him “a batsman right above the average”, “the best match winner in club cricket” and “the only first-class exponent of the googly ball that I know playing regularly for a London club”. The author of the article in Cricket, noting that as a bowler “he has so many peculiar mannerisms that it is quite impossible to describe his methods in print”, nevertheless outlined his style. His bowling action was “curious” as he “delivers the ball with his arm well extended, and until it actually breaks no batsman can tell which way it is going to break, or whether it is coming straight through”. The author claimed that Browne himself did not always know what the ball was going to do, but believed that, as a natural googly bowler who could keep a good length and was extremely difficult to read from the hand, he would be just as effective in first-class cricket. The profile also described how, being “quick as lightning”, he was good in the field “like most West Indians”. As a batsman, he played correctly, was quick on his feet and played strokes all around the wicket. Such was his impact that there was speculation in later issues of Cricket that he would eventually play county cricket.

Browne continued to play for Clapham Ramblers in 1913 and 1914, although he attracted less attention. He also represented other clubs, most notably for Surrey Club and Ground, furthering suggestions he would play county cricket. But his time in England was drawing to a close. Having passed his exams, on 24 June 1914 he was called to the bar, and in September he sailed from London onboard the Salybia back to Barbados. Perhaps he always planned to leave, but maybe the outbreak of the First World War prompted his return home. Altogether, his costs at the Middle Temple, which he usually paid in cash, had been over £200 — worth over £20,000 today.

The next few years are slightly mysterious but it is possible to make some educated guesses. Browne’s Who’s Who entry states that he was called to the bar in Barbados in 1914; presumably as soon as he arrived home. But then in 1916, he moved to British Guiana, where he was also called to the bar. The most likely explanation is that he moved to work with his influential brother Philip.

At the time, Philip Nathaniel Browne was also a barrister in Guiana. In fact, Philip found himself increasingly at odds with the British Government. He was a prominent member of the People’s Political Organisation and had been elected in 1906 to the Court of Policy, Guiana’s partially-representative legislative body. In 1915, the British Government rejected a proposal that Philip should be appointed as a third King’s Counsel for Guiana because he was considered politically dangerous through his association with “popular politics”. Over the following two years, he allied himself more with the government, and therefore was appointed KC in 1917; he later acted as a Crown Prosecutor. This not only reflected Philip’s position as a leading barrister (and his support of the government), but also was prompted by the hope that appointing a black KC would generate popular approval.

It is hard to believe that Browne’s 1916 move was not connected with his brother in some fashion, and he clearly relocated to British Guiana for business reasons. But he was far from finished as a cricketer despite leaving Barbados; his feats for British Guiana would be extraordinary.

After the First World War, first-class cricket resumed in the West Indies with two matches between Barbados and Trinidad in 1920; it is likely that British Guiana were invited but were unable to take part. A similar attempt to resume the Intercolonial Tournament in early 1921 also came to nothing, but finally, in September of that year, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana assembled in Trinidad to contest the tournament for the first time in almost ten years. Browne’s record and experience made him a certain pick for British Guiana.

Browne’s former team, Barbados, were overwhelmingly strong in this period; as the winners of the last competition, they automatically qualified for the final. Trinidad also were highly effective, particularly at home on matting pitches. British Guiana, on the other hand, fielded a very inexperienced side; four of the team made their first-class debut in this game. Only one man, Jules Chabrol, had ever passed fifty in first-class cricket, but his only such score, an innings of 53, had been back in 1904.

Joseph Veerasawmy (Image: Everest Cricket Club)

In those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that British Guiana were crushed by a vastly superior Trinidad team. In two innings, they could only score 89 and 124; in his only first-class match, Padwick Green top-scored twice with innings of 38 and 23. Browne scored 0 and 19, and was run out in both innings. Trinidad’s total of 293, underpinned by Wilton St Hill’s maiden first-class century, was enough for an innings victory. But the British Guiana bowling was more effective than its batting; Browne opened the bowling and took three for 45, but the most successful bowler was his old team-mate from Clapham Ramblers, Joseph Veerasawmy, who took five for 67.

In short, the match would have been totally unremarkable except for one detail. British Guiana were captained by Browne. For a team in the Caribbean to be led by a black player was unprecedented, and would not become common practice until long after the Second World War. From the limited evidence available, Browne’s captaincy attracted no public comment at the time, adverse or otherwise. The only controversy arose when the final was left drawn after Barbados had to travel home. However, many years later, Learie Constantine wrote a chapter in his Cricket Crackers (1950) which discussed captaincy at length, and particularly what he called the “colour bar” on black cricketers captaining West Indian teams. At the time he wrote, the only black Test captain of the West Indies had been George Headley — for a single match in 1948. Discussing the issue, Constantine touched upon Browne: “C. R. Browne, a black man, captained a British Guiana side in Trinidad in 1922 [sic]. Rumour said that certain influential people in Trinidad then objected. And certainly no coloured man has captained an intercolonial side since!”

Constantine was reporting what he admitted was a rumour, but it is undeniable that Browne never captained British Guiana again, although he continued to hold the role for “British Guiana Cricket Club” in the local competition. Additionally, according to his Who’s Who entry, he also held the position of Vice-President of the British Guiana Selection Committee. All of this suggests that the issues were not with Guiana, and any protests had indeed come from elsewhere.

Browne’s influence is also apparent in a report originating from Trinidad early in 1922 that Arthur Somerset had written to him proposing that a West Indies team should tour England in 1922; Browne passed the suggestion on to Archie Wiles of Trinidad, who promised to discuss it with the other colonies. The idea eventually evolved into a tour by the West Indies in 1923, and that was a whole new chapter not just for Browne, but for the history of West Indies cricket…

NOTE: CricketArchive and ESPNcricinfo record J. A. Veerasawmy as Joseph Alexander Veerasawmy. Guyanese records indicate that he was actually called John Aloysius Veerasawmy; either the former sources are mistaken (they also give a different birth date to Guyanese records) or the first-class cricketer and the founder of Everest are two different men.