OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21141, 26 March 1932, Page 9

OBITUARY.

LORD HARRIS. DOYEN OF CRICKET WORLD. (Receiver! March 25, 5 5 p.m.) LONDON, March 21. The death lias occurred of Lord Harris, doyen of the cricket world, aged 81. George Robert Canning, fourtb Baron Harris, was born in February, 1351, at Government, House. Trinidad, and educated at Eton arid Christ. Church, Oxford. His father, whom he succeeded in 1872, was the third Lord Harris nnad his motlici a daughter of Archdeacon Cummings of Trinidad. Roth at. Eton and at Oxford he distinguished himself as a cricketei. his love of Ihe game being intense. Then, and in Ins later career, lie took infinite trouble over every detail of the sport in t.iie desire fo have cricket played for its own sake as tho finest of manly games. Jn 1875 he was made, captain of the. Kent team and for many years, as one of Hie best cricketers of tho period, brought honours to tho county. .Tri 1880 he captained the English team at tho Oval in the fust match ever played between England and Australia. 110 was afterwards made a trustee and president of the M.C.C. and became one of the most noteworthy figures at Lord s. In the meanwhile Lord Harris, was erigaged in an active political career. In 1885 he was Under-Secretary for India in Salisbury's Conservative Government and from .1886 to 1890 was Under-Secretary for War. His appointment to tho Governorship of Bombay followed in the latter year and he was awarded the G.G.I.E. In the course of the five years he spent in India he had religious conflicts, floods and other big problems to handle, but in the intervals he managed to find time for cricket and did much fo popularise tho game in that part of the world. On his return to England in 1895 he received the G.C.S.I, and became Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria until 1900. when he was made Assistant-Adjutant-General to the Imperial Yeomanry with which he served in the South African War for a year. His interest, in cricket never waned and even in 1928 when lie was 77, he played at Lord's against the Indian Gymkhana with vigour and credit. He made cricket the game of the Empire. " It is not only a game,'* he once said, but a school of the greatest social importance." In recent years he had advocated something being done to help bowlers conquer the ascendancy of batsmen. Lord Harris married the Hon. Lucy Ada Jervis, C.1., daughter of the third Viscount St. Vincent. His heir is his only son, Captain the Hon. George St. Vincent Harris, who was born on September 3, 1889. He was Captain in the lloya] East Kent Imperial Yeomanry and served in the Great War, 1914-18, winning the Military Cross and being mentioned in despatches. The new Lord Harris was married in 1918 to Miss Dorothy Mary Grookes, daughter of the Rev. J. Crookes, late vicar of Borden, and they have one son.