Bruce Hylton-Stewart

Bruce de la Coeur Hylton-Stewart (27 November 1891 – 1 October 1972) was a musician and schoolteacher who played first-class cricket for Somerset and Cambridge University between 1912 and 1914.

Born at New Brighton and brought up also in Cheshire, where his father Charles Henry Hylton Stewart was a minor canon of Chester Cathedral.^[1] Hylton-Stewart was educated at Bath College,^[2] then went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge, with an organ scholarship.^[3] He was a right-handed lower or middle order batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler.

He first appeared in first-class cricket in the Somerset match against the South Africans in 1912, when he replaced the injured Harry Chidgey after the game had started.^[4] Two weeks later, he made his only appearance of the 1912 season for Cambridge University, and then from mid-July appeared fairly regularly for Somerset for the rest of the season. His batting was not successful, but he had one sensational day as a bowler, taking five wickets for three runs in 14 balls against Worcestershire at Stourbridge: these remained the best bowling figures of his first-class cricket career.^[5]

In 1913, Hylton-Stewart played 11 first-class matches, most of them in the second half of the season and all of them for Somerset. He took five wickets in an innings for a second time, this time five for 72 against Yorkshire at Park Avenue, Bradford.^[6] His batting improved as well, and he made his first score of more than 50, an unbeaten 72 against Sussex at Bath.^[7]

The 1914 season was Hylton-Stewart's most successful as a batsman – he made 520 runs at an average of 20.80 per innings. After two matches for Cambridge in mid-season, he again played most of Somerset's matches in the second half of the year. Batting now in the middle order, he made his only first-class century, 110, made in 105 minutes out of an innings of 220, against Essex at Leyton.^[8] And late in the season, he made 91 against Worcestershire at Taunton.^[9]

During the First World War Hylton-Stewart was commissioned in the British Army and served with school Officers' Training Corps (OTC), first at The Leys School and then at Haileybury.^[10] He remained with the Haileybury OTC until 1929 when he resigned his commission.^[11]

Hylton-Stewart did not return to first-class cricket after the First World War but played Minor Counties cricket for Hertfordshire up to 1927.

Hylton-Stewart taught at Marlborough College 1934–54 and then was Director of Music and organist at St James's Church, Piccadilly, 1954–70.^[12] He died at Marlborough.

Note on spelling

Hylton-Stewart's surname is written without a hyphen in some non-cricketing references, regularly with a hyphen in cricketing references. Both his father and his older brother, Charles Hylton Stewart (1884–1932), who achieved fame as a composer of church music including settings for Psalms and as the organist at Rochester and Chester Cathedrals and at St George's Chapel, Windsor, are generally written without a hyphen.^[1]

Bruce Hylton-Stewart's middle name is also, in some references, spelled as "Delacour".^[1][2]

References