Gregor MacGregor (cricketer)
Encyclopedia
- For the Australian politician with a similar name, see Gregor McGregorGregor McGregorThe Hon. Gregor McGregor was an influential Australian politician and trade union leader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century....
Gregor MacGregor (31 August 1869, Merchiston
Merchiston
Merchiston is a prosperous, mainly residential area in the south-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. The housing is primarily a mixture of large, late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian villas – several of the latter by Edward Calvert – together with a smaller number of Victorian tenements and...
, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- 20 August 1919, Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
, 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...
) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
cricketer
Cricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....
and rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
player. He played rugby for Scotland
Scotland national rugby union team
The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...
and cricket for England.
Personal history
MacGregor was born in 1869 to Donald MacGregor J.P. of Argyll in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was schooled at UppinghamUppingham
Disambiguation: "Uppingham" is the colloquial name for Uppingham SchoolUppingham is a market town in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England, located on the A47 between Leicester and Peterborough, about 6 miles south of the county town, Oakham.- History :A little over a mile to the...
before matriculating to Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
in October 1887. On leaving university he found work on the London Stock Exchange.
Cricketer
In cricket he played for MiddlesexMiddlesex County Cricket Club
Middlesex 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 Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
as a wicket keeper and captained the county club between 1898-1907. He later served as the treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
, before his death in 1919, aged 49.
Rugby career
Gregor MacGregor was also notable as a rugby union footballer. Within rugby, MacGregor played club rugby for CambridgeCambridge University R.U.F.C.
The Cambridge University Rugby Union Football Club, or CURUFC, is the rugby union club of Cambridge University, and plays Oxford University in the annual Varsity Match at Twickenham stadium every December. CURUFC players wear light blue and white hooped jerseys with a red lion crest...
and international rugby for Scotland
Scotland national rugby union team
The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...
between 1890 and 1896.
In 1889 and 1890 he appeared as full back for Cambridge
Cambridge University R.U.F.C.
The Cambridge University Rugby Union Football Club, or CURUFC, is the rugby union club of Cambridge University, and plays Oxford University in the annual Varsity Match at Twickenham stadium every December. CURUFC players wear light blue and white hooped jerseys with a red lion crest...
against Oxford, showing himself a fine tackler and very accurate kick. In the same season that he first appeared for Cambridge, he was also awarded his first international cap. MacGregor was selected by the Scottish Rugby Union
Scottish Rugby Union
The Scottish Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. It is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873, as the Scottish Football Union.-History:...
to appear for Scotland in all three international matches of the 1890 Home Nations Championship
1890 Home Nations Championship
The 1890 Home Nations Championship was the eighth series of the rugby union Home Nations Championship. Six matches were played between 1 February and 15 March. It was contested by England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.-Table:-Results:...
.
In 1890, MacGregor was invited to join William Percy Carpmael
William Percy Carpmael
William Percy Carpmael was the founder and first president of the rugby union Barbarian Football Club. Carpmael was born the eldest of eight in Briscobel, Stretham in England.-Education and early career:...
's newly formed touring team, the Barbarians
Barbarian F.C.
The Barbarian Football Club, usually referred to as the Barbarians and nicknamed the "Baa-Baas", is an invitational rugby union team based in Britain...
. He accepted and became an original member of the team.
MacGregor also played in the Home Nations Championship in 1891 and 1893, missing the 1892 tournament as he was out in Australia with Lord Sheffield's cricket team in 1892, and in 1894 he played against England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...
and Wales
Wales national rugby union team
The Wales national rugby union team represent Wales in international rugby union tournaments. They compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. Wales have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 24 times outright, second only to England with...
. His final appearance in an international game being between Scotland and England, decided at Hampden Park
Hampden Park
Hampden Park is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The 52,063 capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland...
, Glasgow, in 1896. Although he began and finished his career in matches as a full back, MacGregor played mostly in those games as a centre three-quarter—those when the three three-quarter system was preferred. In the course of his career he appeared on several occasions for Middlesex. On one of these, when the four three-quarter system had come into vogue, he had for his colleagues Andrew Stoddart
Andrew Stoddart
Andrew Ernest Stoddart was an English cricketer and rugby union player. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1893.-Cricket career:...
, Arthur Gould, and G. T. Campbell, all internationals. Despite such talented players all appearing in the same team, Yorkshire proved victorious.
MacGregor also wrote about rugby. For example, he contributed a chapter entitled Full Back Play to a book by Bertram Fletcher Robinson
Bertram Fletcher Robinson
Bertram Fletcher Robinson was an English sportsman, journalist, author and Liberal Unionist Party campaigner. Between 1893 and 1907, he wrote nearly 300 published items including a series of short stories that feature a detective called Addington Peace. However, Robinson is perhaps best remembered...
that is entitled Rugby Football (London: The Isthmian Library, 1896). This book was recently republished in facsimile form.
Cricket
- Wisden Cricketers' Almanack obituary on Gregor MacGregor.
- CricketArchive page on Gregor MacGregor
- Cricinfo page on Gregor MacGregor
Rugby union
- Bath, Richard (ed.) The Scotland Rugby Miscellany (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007 ISBN 1905326246)
- Godwin, Terry Complete Who's Who of International Rugby (Cassell, 1987, ISBN 0713718382)
- Gregor MacGregor on scrum dot com
See also
- List of Scottish cricket and rugby union players