First-class ground: Kent and later London CCC, as well as other top teams, played on a ground that is now part of Crystal Palace Park
Many sportsmen and women will have special memories of their own sporting triumphs. It might have been a hole-in-one on a memorable day at Mitcham Golf Club, it might have been that vital catch held while fielding at long leg at the Old Saw Mill in Sanderstead, it might have a winning volley in a Surrey League tennis fixture.
One Croydon resident, Jack Bookless, held such a sporting memory. Captaining Guy’s Hospital against London County Cricket Club, he took the wicket of the famous, albeit ageing, WG Grace, the secretary and manager of the London club.
What a wicket: Dr WG Grace is regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all-time
The London County Cricket Club was founded in 1898 by the Crystal Palace Company to play first-class cricket in their south London pleasure grounds in the park surrounding the vast glass building.
Dr Grace, the most famous cricketer of the Victorian age, was appointed secretary, manager and captain. His long association with Gloucestershire was ended abruptly as a result.
Although many matches were played against county sides, the London club had to resort to filling its fixture list with local teams. With crowds diminishing and Dr Grace getting on in years – he was 60 in 1908 – the London County Cricket Club was wound up.
Guy’s Hospital cricket team had been among their opponents for several years. A surviving scorecard from their match against the LCCC from 1904 revealed that Bookless scored 15 runs, although that was a game in which WG Grace did not play.
A postcard, written by Grace in October 1905, to AM Tolhurst, the secretary of Guy’s Hospital Cricket Club, said that he had booked the fixture between the clubs for the following season on Wednesday May 9 at Honor Oak Park, with the return match at Crystal Palace on June 13 at 11.30am.
It was during one of these fixtures Bookless probably had his magic moment.
Regular fixture: LCCC had Guy’s Hospital, and John Bookless, playing at Crystal Palace multiple times in the first decade of the 20th Century
While there was no scorecard evidence of Bookless’ greatest cricket moment, his obituary in the British Medical Journal was in no doubt of the feat.
Bookless enjoyed a successful career in medicine in Croydon and on Harley Street, as well being an integral part of the life of Croydon Parish Church.
He also played other sports, including badminton, tennis and golf.
Born on March 5 1878, he was christened John Smeed Bookless (his middle name being his mother’s maiden name). His father was a GP in Eastbourne. After school, Bookless won a mathematical scholarship to Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
It was only after his university degree that he decided to go into medicine. He entered Guy’s Hospital medical school in 1900, completing his medical studies in 1906.
Bookless was married in October in the following year to Nora Evelyn Bartlett.
He did two house appointments at Guy’s before he became a partner in a general practice in Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, before returning to Guy’s in 1911. He took up ophthalmology, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1913 and a year later began practice as an ophthalmic surgeon in Croydon.
In 1916, Bookless was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps. Captain Bookless was sent to France as an ophthalmic specialist, spending two years treating eye casualties, mainly in a hospital in Le Havre.
Career in Croydon: Dr John Bookless FRCS
While he was away at war, Mrs Bookless advertised in the local paper for some additional domestic help for her and their two small boys. In the advert, the Bookless family was seeking a woman aged between 25 and 35 who was “experienced with children” and who would have “entire charge” of the boys, who were aged five and three-and-a-half. Their address was given as 75, Park Lane, Croydon.
Bookless returned to Croydon after the war and became a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Croydon General Hospital, a post he held for 28 years, until 1946.
His skills were very much in demand, and several other roles were held in parallel with his job at Croydon General. Bookless held appointments at Queen Mary’s Hospital for the East End, in Stratford, Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton, at Mayday and Purley Hospital.
His Croydon work also included being responsible for eye health in the council schools. He also led some sessions for the Ministry of Pensions.
Witness for the prosecution: as a senior medical practitioner, Bookless was called upon in court cases
In 1924, Bookless opened a private practice at 16, Harley Street, which he ran until 1942 when his rooms were destroyed in the Blitz. This didn’t stop him from treating a large number of London casualties who suffered eye damage as a result of bombs and doodlebugs.
Bookless was required to appear as a witness at court in Sutton in January 1925, concerning a young man who had been badly injured in an assault.
Attending a local dance, the victim was involved in a fracas and was felled by a punch to the eye. Bookless was called out at three in the morning to attend to the victim, Richard Clegg, who had returned home after the assault.
The extent of the injury was so serious that Bookless advised an immediate admission to Croydon General, where the patient was operated on that morning. The young man’s sight could not be saved and 10 days later the eye was removed.
Bookless was required give evidence on the injuries he observed and the treatment he gave. As he also had to provide his address, it could be seen that he and his family had moved to 13, Coombe Road.
This was all in a time before the National Health Service. Croydon General Hospital was founded in 1867, originally on Duppas Hill Lane, before moving to a larger site on London Road in 1873, where it would continue into the NHS era until closure in 1996. The Harris Invictus school now stands on the hospital’s former site.
Bookless and his wife were thoroughly involved in the life and fundraising at Croydon General Hospital. For their fete held in 1926, Mrs Bookless was responsible for the home-made jams, pickles and marmalade and White Elephant stall. The hospital had found itself with an overdraft of £7,000 and much fund-raising was needed to bring the debt down.
In 1934, when the hospital was again appealing for funds to pay for an extension, Bookless is listed as one of several consultants who donated 10 guineas.
Reports in the local paper showed that Bookless was also generous in giving his time to talk to local groups. In February 1934, he gave a lecture at the Lansdowne Social Club on the prevention of blindness. Much was done to support partially sighted and blind people at the Lansdowne Club for the Blind, including musical events and games nights for sightless members, which were very well attended.
In the same year, Bookless gave a talk at the Rotary Club meeting at the Greyhound Hotel. He talked about myopia, or short-sightedness, as being a significant problem, especially in the education system, where a lot of close work was necessary. He conjectured that the use of gramophone records, broadcasting and the cinema could be used as a better means of instruction. What would he have thought about screen time?
Good talker: Bookless was a regular speaker at clubs and associations around Croydon
Bookless was an active member of the Croydon Rotary Club, winning the Alan Straker Trophy in 1936, one of their golf trophies.
Bookless was a lifelong member of the British Medical Association and was the chairman of the Croydon division in 1935. A year later, he became the president of the Croydon Medical Society.
During the 1930s, he was a sidesman (known as the welcome team at Croydon Minster today), at Croydon Parish Church, greeting worshippers and giving out the hymn books. He was described as “a devout Christian gentleman”.
The Booklesses’ son Alec, who went on to become a GP in Sanderstead, was married in the church on May 14 1938 to Elsie Lloyd, the daughter of a Thornton Heath doctor.
Bookless kept in touch with his fellow students from Guy’s, too. In 1947, he attended the funeral of Herbert Archer in Nether Stowey in Somerset, with whom he played rugby at Guy’s. Archer had been a talent with the oval ball, “he was a fast and clever forward” and represented England on three occasions and toured New Zealand with the British Lions in 1908. Archer, like Bookless, had served in the RAMC during World War 1.
Aged 68, Bookless retired in 1946, moving down to Crowborough.
Bookless lived to 92. Even after his 90th birthday, he liked to keep himself active.
He had always enjoyed long and arduous walks in the Cairngorms on his holidays and he continued his outdoor activities in his later years, including bird spotting and playing bowls. He also continued to be an active member of the Colonial and Continental Church Society and the Officers’ Christian Union.
He was a public servant who was a popular and respected figure in Croydon and beyond. He probably wasn’t the kind of person to go around bragging about his moment of cricketing fame, the day he took the wicket of WG Grace. Though few, if any, of the thousands of people he cared for in his own medical career will have minded had he done so.
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- From flames to fame, Waddon’s Knox family made their mark
- The wartime night that the ‘first lady of jazz’ sang for Croydon
- Music Hall performer whose potato song helped the war effort
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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