Francis Reed played first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 for Somerset

Somerset County Cricket Club

Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...

 from 1882 to 1884. He was born at Ottery St Mary

Ottery St Mary

Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery" , is a town in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about ten miles east of Exeter on the B3174. It is part of a large civil parish of the same name, which also covers the villages of West Hill, Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

 and died at Whitechapel

Whitechapel

Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

A right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm medium-paced bowler, Reed played for the Gentlemen of Somerset team from 1871 and for Somerset in pre-first-class matches across the 1870s. In 1882, when some of Somerset's games were retrospectively accorded first-class status, he played half a dozen matches and in the first of them, against Hampshire

Hampshire County Cricket Club

Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...

 at Southampton, he took four first-innings wickets for 35 runs in 28 four-ball overs, and these remained his best bowling figures. He did not play at all in 1883 but returned for a few games in 1884 and in the Hampshire fixture at Southampton he again did well, scoring an unbeaten 57 in the first innings, though Somerset lost the match heavily after conceding 645 in Hampshire's only innings.