Alfred Hartley
Encyclopedia
Alfred Hartley, born at New Orleans, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, on April 11, 1879 and died near Maissemy
Maissemy
Maissemy is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.-Administration:-Population:-External links:* * * *...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 on October 9, 1918, was a cricketer
Cricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....

 who played for Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...

.

Hartley was a solid, defensive right-handed opening batsman from the West Indies who had a fairly brief career in English county cricket. He made his first-class debut in 1907, made 1,000 runs at a respectable average in both 1908 and 1909, but only really came to the fore in 1910 when, with 1,585 runs at an average of nearly 37 runs per innings, he was selected for the Gentlemen v Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...

 matches at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

 and Lord's. He did little in the first match, but in the second, though scoring only 24 and 35, he impressed the editor of Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...

 sufficiently to be named in the 1911 edition as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season"...

. His big innings of the season was 234 for Lancashire against the very weak Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 team at Old Trafford
Old Trafford (cricket)
Old Trafford is a cricket ground situated on Talbot Road in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester. It has been the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club since its foundation in 1864, having been the ground of Manchester Cricket Club from 1857...

, and he also scored a century in the return fixture at Bath.

In 1911, Hartley's performance fell away significantly: he failed to reach 1,000 runs and scored no centuries. He played only a handful of matches in 1912, none the following year and just one in 1914.

There is a picture of Hartley and of his grave in a British First World War cemetery in France here.
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