Lionel Tennyson, 3rd Baron Tennyson

Lionel Tennyson

Tennyson pictured in about 1922
Personal information
Full name	Lionel Hallam Tennyson
Born	(1889-11-07)7 November 1889 Westminster, London, England
Died	6 June 1951(1951-06-06) (aged 61) Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England
Batting	Right-handed
Bowling	Right-arm fast
Relations	Alfred Tennyson (grandfather) Audrey Tennyson (mother) Hallam Tennyson (father) Clare Tennant (wife) Harold Tennyson (son) Mark Tennyson (son)
International information
National side	England
Test debut (cap 180)	13 December 1913 v South Africa
Last Test	16 August 1921 v Australia
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1913–1935	Hampshire
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class Matches 9 477 Runs scored 345 16,828 Batting average 31.36 23.33 100s/50s 0/4 19/66 Top score 74* 217 Balls bowled 6 3,756 Wickets 0 55 Bowling average – 54.10 5 wickets in innings – 0 10 wickets in match – 0 Best bowling – 3/50 Catches/stumpings 6/– 172/–
Source: Cricinfo, 12 November 2008
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
In office 2 December 1928 – 6 June 1951 Hereditary Peerage
Preceded by	Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson
Succeeded by	Harold Tennyson, 4th Baron Tennyson

Arms of Tennyson: Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon a chaplet vert between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second

Lionel Hallam Tennyson, 3rd Baron Tennyson (7 November 1889 – 6 June 1951) was known principally as a first-class cricketer who captained Hampshire and England. He was the grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Early life and education

The son of Hallam Tennyson, the Governor of South Australia, Tennyson was born at Westminster in November 1889. His father would later be appointed Governor-General of Australia in 1903. He had lived in Australia since 1899, with his father and mother, Audrey, along with his siblings. He was educated in England at Eton College, where he played for the college cricket team as a fast bowler in 1907 and 1908. From there, he matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge. He performed well in the freshmans match, but did not play for Cambridge University Cricket Club. He left Cambridge after one year, in order to join the British Army. He was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards as a second lieutenant in August 1909, before transferring to the Rifle Brigade in December 1912.

Cricket

Pre-war cricket and Test debut

Tennyson made his debut in first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) against Oxford University at Lord's in 1913. In the same year, he also made his debut for Hampshire in the County Championship, with Tennyson playing nine times for Hampshire in 1913. He made three centuries in his debut season, in which he scored 832 runs at an average of 46.22. He scored heavily alongside Cecil Abercrombie, with the two going some way to compensate for the loss of C. B. Fry from the Hampshire team in 1913. Following his successful first season, the MCC offered him a place on the winter tour to South Africa as a replacement for Frederick Fane, which he accepted. He departed with the team on 18 October 1913, on board a Union-Castle Line steamer RMS Saxon from Southampton, with Tennyson being seen off by his mother and father.

Tennyson played in the first five first-class matches of the tour against state and provincial teams, before making his Test debut for England against South Africa at Durban on 13 December; he made 52 batting at number four in England's only innings.

First-class debut and WW1 service

He was born in 1889. His father had recently become Governor of South Australia (later the Governor-General of Australia). He and his wife Audrey Tennyson and their sons were in Australia from 1899. He succeeded his father, Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, to the title in 1928, having been known before that as Hon. Lionel Tennyson.

As a schoolboy at Eton College, Tennyson was a fast bowler, but by the time he took up regular first-class cricket with Hampshire in 1913, he bowled very rarely. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1914. During World War I he served with The Rifle Brigade in France. He was mentioned in dispatches twice and three times wounded. His two younger brothers were killed in the war.

Tennyson played nine Test matches for England, five of them on the tour of South Africa under Johnny Douglas in 1913/14. In 1921, England having lost six Test matches in succession to the Australians under Warwick Armstrong, Tennyson was recalled to the side for the second Test at Lord's, and though the game was again lost, he scored an undefeated 74 in the second innings against Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald at their fastest. That innings led him to be appointed captain for the three remaining matches of the series, succeeding Douglas. The next game was lost; the final two matches were left drawn. At Headingley in the first of these three games as captain, Tennyson split his hand while fielding in the Australians' first innings but, patched up with what Wisden called a "basket guard", he made 63 and 36. He led several non-Test match tours overseas, to India, South Africa and the West Indies.

Tennyson was captain of Hampshire from 1919 to 1932. He was in charge of the side in the remarkable match against Warwickshire in 1922, when Hampshire were bowled out for 15 runs in their first innings and, having been forced to follow on, then scored 521 in the second innings and won the match by 155 runs.

In 1933 he published his autobiography, From Verse to Worse. Returning from his second war-wound to the Western Front he records: "I have never liked 'travelling light', and so, though the amount of kit I arrived with may, in fact, have aroused a certain amount of astonishment, I was quickly forgiven by my commanding officer as well as by everyone else, when they found out that it included, amongst other things, a case of champagne." He published a second volume of memoirs, Sticky Wickets, in 1950.

He was appointed Honorary Colonel of 51st (London) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (a Territorial Army unit based in Chelsea, London) on 9 August 1931 and held the position until 1947.

He married Hon. Clare Tennant in 1918. They had three sons before they divorced in 1928:

• Harold Tennyson, 4th Baron Tennyson (1919–1991), died unmarried
• Mark Tennyson, 5th Baron Tennyson (1920–2006), married Deline Celeste Budler but died without issue
• Lionel Tennyson (1925–1925), died in infancy

He was later married to Carroll Donner (née Elting) from 1934 until their divorce in 1943.

External links

• Lionel Tennyson, 3rd Baron Tennyson at ESPNcricinfo
• From Verse To Worse by Lionel Tennyson (1933) (digitised version)
• Brief footage of Tennyson from British Pathe (at 3.55, 4.14 and 7.00)