Page 953 - Reading Mercury

King. This week he was doing a TV play and shortly to make a film called “This
Sporting Life”.

rd
Sat 23 Sept
PASSING OF A FAMOUS CRICKETER
A.P.F. Chapman’s Famous Days
Mr. A.P.F. Chapman, the Reading-born Berkshire County cricketer, who later was to
become captain of England and one of the great personalities of the game, died in an
Alton hospital on Saturday, aged 61. To cricket Arthur Percy Frank Chapman brought
a new gaiety of approach, even a light-hearted atmosphere, yet in terms of matches
won, England have had few more successful leaders.
Born in Reading in September 1900, he was the son of the late Mr. Frank Emerson
Chapman, of Wokingham, himself an all-round sportsman of reputation. Mr.
Chapman was a former Wokingham Town Councillor who moved to Wokingham on
retiring from Haileybury, and lived in Wiltshire Road. He served on the Town
Council from 1921 to 1928.
The same sporting flair soon became evident in the son. He was educated at
Uppingham, where he was elected captain of the cricket team. Representative matches
at Lords followed, and in 1919 he was chosen by Wisden as one of the five “Public
School Cricketers of the Year.”
Percy, as he was known to a vast circle of friends, gained his blue as a Freshman at
Cambridge in 1920 and was also a member of A.C. Maclaren’s 1921 team which, at
Eastbourne, inflicted their first defeat on Warwick Armstrong’s Australians. The
following year he scored a dazzling century against Oxford, and followed up with 160
for the Gentlemen against the Players at Lords. But his achievements with the bat
were invariably equalled by his gifted fielding.
Coming down from Cambridge, he played for Berkshire in the Minor Counties
championship, and on two separate occasions, chiefly through his efforts, Berkshire
obtained the greatest percentage of points and played in the finals against the winners
of other sections.
He later played for Kent, and from 1931 to 1936 he captained that county, for whom
he was a stimulating influence.
In 1924/25 he toured Australia with Arthur Gilligan’s M.C.C. side, but his great
moment came in the final Test of 1926, at the Oval. He had played in some of the
earlier tests of the series, all of which had been drawn, but for the Oval match—on
which depended the Ashes which Australia had held throughout the post-war period,
he was chosen a captain. Surprise greeted the choice, as his experience of captaincy
was limited to school and minor matches, yet he led England to a triumphant victory.
For four years he stayed at the top, through series of fascinating Tests with the
Australian side captained by Bradman, but in 1930 he was dropped for the fifth and
final match after scoring a cavalier 121 in the second.
His marriage in 1925 to Miss G.H.H. Lowry, sister of a New Zealand cricket captain
was dissolved in 1942.

th
Fri 17 Nov (Evening Standard)
EX-MAYORS HONOUR THE MAN WHO LIKES TO LOOK AFTER PEOPLE.
Mayors come and go but one man survives them all—Wokingham’s mace-bearer-
at-arms, Mr. Cyril Nibbs. At last Thursday’s meeting of the council the man who,
during the past 22 years, has attended 16 of the town’s Mayors, got a pleasant
surprise. The present Mayor (Dr. P.P. Pigott) handed Mr. Nibbs, an envelope

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