Philip Thorn

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Philip R Thorn (1937 - 22 May 2006) was a distinguished English researcher and statistician.

Philip Thorn was an insurance consultant who was regarded as one of the best researchers into the History of Cricket. He was a founding member of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians in 1973. He served on its Committee between 1973 and 1974 and as Treasurer in 1974.

He found research to be more pleasurable than committee work. He had become fascinated by the challenge to track down the births, deaths and other biographical details long before the ACS was formed. Thorn's expertise in this sphere has resulted in his distinguished contribution to many ACS publications. He told an early ACS meeting that more than 60% of cricketers deaths had gone unrecorded in Wisden and he subsequently found most of the missing details. He was the man saddled with the ardous task of tracing the 2,000 or so cricketers for the "Hamlyn's Who's Who", who had not appeared for a county XI. Most of the elusive gaps were filled for the subsequent 1993 edition.

He later edited its journal "The Cricket Statistician". With Philip Bailey and Peter Wynne-Thomas, he co-authored the "Who's Who of Cricket" in 1984, which was later updated.