John Barnwell (cricketer)

Charles John Patrick Barnwell (23 June 1914 – 4 September 1998) played first-class cricket for Somerset as an amateur player before and after the Second World War. He was born at Stoke-on-Trent in 1914.

John Barnwell was a right-handed batsman who, in a team with a large number of all-rounders, frequently batted as low as No 8 or 9 in the order. He sometimes captained the team in the absence of the regular captains Reggie Ingle and Bunty Longrigg. He was also known as a good fielder in the covers.^[1]

Educated at Repton, Barnwell first appeared for Somerset in 1935, and played 11 matches the following year, though with a highest score of 38 he made little impact.^[2] In 1937, he played only seven games, but passed 50 for the first time with 73 in the match against Gloucestershire at Taunton.^[3]

In 1938 and 1939, and again in the first post-war season of 1946, Barnwell appeared in more than half Somerset's first-class matches, although he failed to top 400 runs in any season. In 1938, batting at No 9, he made an unbeaten 49 and shared a partnership for the eighth wicket of 143 with Longrigg which was a county record until beaten by Viv Richards and Ian Botham in 1983.^[4] His best season was 1939, when he made 396 runs, including his career-best of 83 against Hampshire at Taunton.^[5]

After the 1946 season, Barnwell was allegedly offered the captaincy of Somerset, but turned it down,^[1] and appeared for the county only once more, in 1948.

His career outside cricket was as a farmer, breeding silver foxes for the fur trade.^[1] According to another account by the same author, he "personified the 'old school', a debonair amateur... Rightly proud of his nimbleness in the covers and the four boundaries in a row he once audaciously took off Voce at Trent Bridge."^[6]

His nephew, Michael Barnwell, played cricket for Cambridge University, Somerset and Eastern Province in the 1960s and 1970s. He died at Fivehead in Somerset in 1998.