John Henry Harris 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...

 between 1952 and 1959 and was a first-class umpire in English cricket from 1981 to 2000. He was born at Taunton

Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

.

Cricket player

As a player, Harris was a lower-order left-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He made his debut for Somerset in May 1952 aged just 16 years and three months, the youngest cricketer ever to play for the county; he did not take a wicket in his first match but scored 18 out of a ninth wicket partnership of 48 with Bertie Buse

Bertie Buse

Herbert Francis Thomas "Bertie" Buse, born at Ashley Down, Bristol, on 5 August 1910 and died at Bath on 23 February 1992, was a cricketer who played 304 first-class matches for Somerset before and after the Second World War.-Cricket career:...

. There were two further matches in 1953 before Harris disappeared from first-class cricket for three years on National Service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

. When his cricket career resumed with five matches in 1957, he made useful runs from the lower order, with a career-highest of 41 in the match against Worcestershire

Worcestershire County Cricket Club

Worcestershire 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 Worcestershire...

. But he still struggled for wickets in a Somerset side that, unlike the year of the debut, 1952, now had several opttions in fast and medium-paced bowling with the recruitment of Bill Alley

Bill Alley

William Edward Alley was a cricketer who played 400 first-class matches for New South Wales, Somerset and a Commonwealth XI....

, Ken Palmer

Ken Palmer

Ken Palmer is an English former cricketer and umpire, who played in one Test in 1965, and umpired twenty two Tests and twenty three ODIs from 1977 to 2001.-Life and career:...

, Bryan Lobb

Bryan Lobb

Bryan Lobb was a first-class cricketer who played once for Warwickshire and then more than 100 times for Somerset.-Style and personality:...

, Ken Biddulph

Ken Biddulph

Kenneth David Biddulph played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1955 and 1961, and later appeared in List A cricket matches while playing Minor Counties cricket for Durham between 1962 and 1972...

 and Geoff Lomax

Geoff Lomax

James Geoffrey Lomax, born at Rochdale, Lancashire on 20 May 1925 and died in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol on 21 May 1992, played first-class cricket as a right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium bowler for Lancashire and Somerset between 1949 and 1962....

. He did not play at all in Somerset's successful season of 1958 but returned for seven games in 1959. These included his best bowling performance, three wickets for 29 runs against Worcestershire. But at the end of the season his contract was not renewed.

Harris played Minor Counties cricket for Suffolk

Suffolk County Cricket Club

Suffolk County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Suffolk....

 for three seasons from 1960 to 1962 and then disappeared entirely from representative cricket for a dozen years, reappearing in 1975, again in Minor Counties cricket, this time playing for Devon

Devon County Cricket Club

Devon County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Devon and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy....

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Cricket umpire

Harris was an umpire in Minor Counties matches involving Devon from 1979 to 1982 and from 1981 he started acting as umpire in a few first-class matches too. In 1983 he was appointed for the regular first-class and List A umpires for English cricket and he remained there, officiating in 288 first-class and 308 List A games, until he retired at the end of the 2000 season. He acted as reserve umpire in one Test match in his final season as an umpire.