Tom Lowry

For the businessman who oversaw the construction of the Twin Cities streetcar system, see Thomas Lowry.

Thomas ("Tom") Coleman Lowry (17 February 1898 in Fern Hill, Hawke's Bay – 20 July 1976 in Okawa, Hastings) was a New Zealand cricketer. He played in the first seven Test matches that New Zealand ever played, captaining the team in all of them.

Lowry served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, before going up to Cambridge University in 1921. Despite his clear cricketing skills, he struggled to make what was then an excellent first-class side in his first two years, and did not earn his Blue. He did, however, play some games for Somerset, although his qualification to do so was obscure. The story is told that his birthplace was said to be Wellington, without mentioning that it was not the Somerset market town but the one in New Zealand; in fact, this was how Somerset had skirted the regulations for Peter Randall Johnson before World War I. In 1922 he toured with Archie MacLaren's side to Australia and New Zealand and in 1923 secured his place in the Cambridge University cricket team, scoring over 1,000 runs and playing for the Gentlemen. He was captain of Cambridge in 1924.

He then returned to New Zealand and captained New Zealand's first Tests, against England in 1929–30, but toured England in 1927, and again in 1931, the latter occasion including New Zealand's first overseas Tests. Later he became a cricket administrator: he was player-manager of the 1937 New Zealand tour to England, and became President of the New Zealand Cricket Council. As a result of his sister's marriage, he was brother-in-law to Percy Chapman.

References

• Cricinfo profile on Tom Lowry
• Cricket Archive details of Tom Lowry