Richard May (cricketer)

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Richard May (died c.1796 in Kent) was a Kent cricketer who was a well-known bowler in the 1760s and 1770s.

His brother Thomas May was a noted batsman, also playing for Kent at the same time.

The May brothers often played alongside each other but many scorecards of the period did not note first names or initials, so it is often impossible to distinguish one from the other in many matches. There is an old verse that tells us:

Tom was for batting, Dick for bowling famed

Very little is known of their personal lives. Of Thomas May, nothing is known at all.

Of Richard May, we know he was a gamekeeper on Sir Horatio Mann’s estate at Bourne and that he died in a drunken fit about 1796, when he was middle-aged. His dying request to his friend George Ring was that Ring should kill his favourite dog and bury it with him! Apparently, this was done despite the remonstrances of the officiating clergyman who said it was sacrilege.