| Personal information | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ernest William Swanton | |||
| Born | 11 February 1907 Forest Hill, London, England |
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| Died | 22 January 2000 (aged 92) Canterbury, Kent, England |
|||
| Nickname | Jim | |||
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | |||
| Batting style | Right-handed | |||
| Bowling style | Right arm leg spin | |||
| Role | Commentator, journalist | |||
| Relations | Reymond de Montmorency (father-in-law) | |||
| Domestic team information | ||||
| Years | Team | |||
| 1937–1938 | Middlesex | |||
| Career statistics | ||||
| Competition | FC | |||
| Matches | 3 | |||
| Runs scored | 67 | |||
| Batting average | 13.40 | |||
| 100s/50s | 0/0 | |||
| Top score | 26 | |||
| Balls bowled | 0 | |||
| Wickets | – | |||
| Bowling average | – | |||
| 5 wickets in innings | – | |||
| 10 wickets in match | – | |||
| Best bowling | – | |||
| Catches/stumpings | 1/– | |||
| Source: Cricinfo, 22 January 2000 | ||||
Ernest William (Jim) Swanton CBE (11 February 1907 – 22 January 2000) is chiefly known for being a cricket writer and commentator under his initials, E. W. Swanton. He worked as a sports journalist for The Daily Telegraph and as a broadcaster for BBC Radio for 30 years. He was a regular commentator on Test Match Special, easily recognised by his distinctive "fruity" voice. After "retiring" in the 1970s, he continued to write occasional articles and columns, virtually until his death.
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Swanton was born in Forest Hill, London. His father was a stockbroker. He claimed to have attended a cricket match at which W. G. Grace scored a century while a baby in his pram. He attended Cranleigh School, and became a journalist. He started at the Amalgamated Press, but began to write for the London Evening Standard at the age of 27. He also played three county cricket matches for Middlesex County Cricket Club in 1937 and 1938, all against university sides. He did not distinguish himself, scoring only 67 runs in 5 first-class innings. He was also President of Sandwich Town Cricket Club, somewhat curiously he is labelled as having served the role for "25 years from 1976" although he died in January 2000.
He served in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry in the Second World War. He was captured by the Japanese in the fall of Singapore, and spent three years as a prisoner of war. He described playing cricket with makeshift equipment and under conditions of extreme privation and the constant threat of brutality in an article, "Cricket under the Japs", for the 1946 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.[1]
After the war, he became cricket correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in 1946, remaining in that post until 1975. He was also editorial director of The Cricketer from 1967 to 1988. His writing style was very spare and simple, reporting what happened and why, without the flourishes of Neville Cardus or John Arlott. John Warr once described it as being "halfway between the Ten Commandments and Enid Blyton".
He was awarded the OBE in 1965 and the CBE in 1994. He made his selections as one of the voters for the Wisden Cricketers of the Century in 2000, shortly before he died in Canterbury. Some also said he had also selected - while never actually a selector - every post-war amateur England cricket captain. A respected biography, by David Rayvern Allen, of Swanton published shortly after his death revealed many previously unknown facts about his life.
"Jim: The Life of E.W.Swanton" by David Rayvern Allen ISBN 978 1854109002