Major William Booth — Major was his given name, not a rank — Yorkshire all-rounder and Test cricketer, was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, while serving with the 15th (Leeds Pals) West Yorkshire Regiment. He was 29.
Major Booth was named after his uncle. He had taken 100 wickets in five different seasons for Yorkshire. His Test career, brief but promising, ran across the 1913-14 South African series.
The Leeds Pals were one of the New Army Pals battalions raised in 1914, drawing recruits from Leeds, Bradford and the West Riding. Booth joined as a private and was commissioned by 1916.
Booth was Yorkshire's all-round prospect of the immediate pre-war years. In 1913 he scored over 1,200 runs and took 181 wickets; he toured South Africa with England in 1913-14 and played two Tests, taking seven wickets. He was a fast-medium bowler with a high action and a useful lower-order bat. When the Leeds Pals battalion was raised in 1914 he enlisted; many of his Yorkshire team-mates joined the same unit. On the morning of 1 July 1916 the Pals went over the top at Serre, on the northern flank of the Somme attack. The battalion was almost wiped out within minutes by German machine-gun fire. Booth was hit by shrapnel near a German wire emplacement; his fellow Yorkshire cricketer Abe Waddington reportedly held him in a shell-hole as he died. His body was not recovered until a Yorkshire battalion returned to the position the following spring; he is now buried at Serre Road Cemetery No. 1.
1908: First-class debut for Yorkshire
1913: 181 first-class wickets
1913-14: Two Tests for England in South Africa
1914: Enlists in the Leeds Pals
1 Jul 1916: Killed at Serre on the first day of the Somme
1886
Major William Booth born in Pudsey
1908
Yorkshire debut
1913-14
Plays two Tests for England in South Africa
1914
Enlists in the Leeds Pals
1 Jul 1916
Killed at Serre, first day of the Somme
“He had the makings of a great cricketer.”
Booth's body was identified months later; he is buried at Serre Road Cemetery No. 1. Yorkshire CCC commissioned a memorial. His sister kept the case in which his cricket caps and medals were displayed.
An England Test cricketer killed in the worst single day in the history of the British Army.
Booth is the highest-profile Yorkshire cricketer killed in the war. His name appears on the Yorkshire memorial at Headingley and on the Pudsey war memorial. Wisden's 1917 obituary section, the longest the almanack ever ran, included him among more than 200 first-class cricketers killed in the war.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.