Bill Roe

Biography

William Nichols Roe (21 March 1861 – 11 October 1937) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Somerset County Cricket Club and Cambridge University in the late 19th century. A right-handed batsman who could play aggressively, but with a sound defensive method, Roe was considered one of Somerset's leading batsmen of the era. He played without merit for Cambridge, and only achieved his Blue during his final year at the university. Roe gained cricketing fame in the summer of 1881, when he was drafted into the Emmanuel College Long Vacation Club cricket team for their match against a similar team from Gonville and Caius. After Caius had scored 100 runs, Roe batted for the rest of the game to reach 415 runs, the highest score in cricket at the time, just passing the previous total of 404 by Edward Tylecote. The match was reported across the contemporary press, though it was stressed that the quality of the opposition bowling was weak. Roe's first-class career never reached the heights it might have done; he was generally an inconsistent scorer, and scored just four hundreds in first-class cricket. His struggles were mirrored by his county side, Somerset, who flitted between first- and second-class cricket during his career. He played for the county from 1879 until 1899, and scored 2,690 runs in all first-class matches.

Bio from Wikipedia