Peter Randall Johnson
Encyclopedia
Peter Randall Johnson, born at Wellington
, New Zealand
on 5 August 1880 and died at Sidmouth
, Devon
on 1 July 1959, was a cricket
er who played for Cambridge University
, Somerset
and several amateur sides in a long first-class cricket
career that stretched from 1900 to 1927. During his career, he appears to have been known, somewhat formally, as "P. R. Johnson"; modern websites refer to him as "Randall Johnson". Somerset colleague Jack MacBryan
, who didn't like him, called him "Peter Johnson".
, Johnson was born in New Zealand, where his father was a member of the state legislature from 1872 to 1890. He was educated at Eton College
and Trinity College, Cambridge
.
.
His record in 1901 was similar, with one score of over 50 – he made 55 in the Cambridge match against Yorkshire
. But this time he was awarded his blue and played in the University match against Oxford University
alongside his future Somerset county captain John Daniell
. In this match and others in 1900 and 1901, Johnson was regarded as something of an all-rounder: he bowled right-arm fast, and took three second innings Oxford wickets for 41 runs in the 1901 University match. This was not his best bowling performance of the 1901 season. Against W. G. Grace
's London County
side, he took four for 99 and these remained the best bowling figures of his long career. In fact, 17 of the 20 wickets he took in his career came in these first two seasons: he bowled seldom after 1902, and after 1906 he bowled only twice more in first-class cricket.
In 1901 as well, Johnson made his debut for Somerset. The match was a first-class game against a South African side that did not play Tests. He opened the innings with Lionel Palairet
and scored 11 and 46. Because the match was not a competitive one, questions of qualification for the county did not arise.
At the end of the English cricket season, Johnson joined a party of amateurs, most of them Oxford or Cambridge players and led by Bernard Bosanquet
, on a tour of North America on which two first-class matches were played.
matches for Somerset. His qualification for the county would appear to have been fairly flimsy: there is a story, which is also told of a later Somerset cricketer, Tom Lowry
, that the county put his birthplace down as Wellington, which was true, without bothering to volunteer that it was not, in fact, the town of that name in Somerset
. Employed as a stockbroker, he had time for fairly regular appearances in 1902 and 1903, fewer in 1904 and 1905, and then more again in 1906. From then until the First World War, Johnson appeared in only a handful of matches in each season, but for five seasons from 1921 to 1925 he was nearly always in the Somerset side, finally retiring after a few unsuccessful matches in 1927.
The historian of Somerset cricket, David Foot, depicts Johnson as a dashing Edwardian figure, always sporting a silk cravat while playing. Foot quotes the writer Christopher Hollis on Johnson in the 1920s: "Always faultlessly dressed, it was his habit to drive up to a match arrayed in top hat and spotless morning coat."
Johnson's statistics indicate his increasing stature as a batsman. In 1902, he averaged only 14 runs per innings; the following year the average was in the mid 20s and, with some exceptions, it was mostly over 30 in the years up to 1914. There was progression, too, in his highest innings. In 1902, he increased his highest score to 62 with an innings that enabled Somerset to draw against the Australians
. In 1903, he hit his first century, 110 against Worcestershire
at Worcester
and followed that with 121 in the match against Sussex
at Taunton. In 1906, again at Worcester, he hit 163 and in that season he made 941 first-class runs, the nearest he got to 1000 in a season before the First World War.
Johnson's best season was 1908, when he topped the first-class averages for the English cricket season with 603 runs in eight innings. In fact, he played in only five matches that season, and one of those was so badly affected by rain that the Somerset side did not bat at all. In his first game, he made 164 and 131 against Middlesex
at Taunton, the first time a Somerset cricketer had hit two centuries in a first-class match. The 164 in this match remained Johnson's highest-ever score. In the following match, against Hampshire
he made 117 and 19. And then in his third match of the season, against Kent
, he scored 31 and 126.
side composed of amateur players that played 11 first-class matches in a three-month period. These were his only experiences of international cricket, though Foot writes, in his history of Somerset cricket: "It's well known that he was invited to go to Australia with the Warner-Douglas team" of 1911-12. But, he adds, "he thought hard about it, tried in vain to revise his business schedules and said no to likely fame."
In Foot's view, "with more spare time," Johnson "would have walked into the England side – and adorned it with that touch of elegance inseparable from his tall, distinctive presence."
under Warwick Armstrong
, which may have been an indication that he was being considered for the Test
team, England having lost all five matches in the Ashes
series the previous winter. In the event, he was unable to bat in the second innings of the match because of a "damaged hand". R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, in a brief profile of Johnson, wrote: "Whatever this captaincy may have foreshadowed, Johnson, having a bone in his hand broken by a very fierce one from J. M. Gregory, dropped out of cricket for some weeks." In fact, Johnson was available for Somerset's next match only a week after the MCC game, but the call to Test cricket never came. In the season as a whole, he passed 1,000 runs for the only time in his career but Wisden noted that he was "brilliant rather than consistent".
Over the next few seasons, Johnson played regular county cricket for Somerset, averaging, after a poor 1922, in the 20s, and making a lot of catches in the slips. As late as 1926, when he was nearly 46 years of age, he was sharing in a last-wicket partnership of 139 in 95 minutes with Robertson-Glasgow against Surrey
at The Oval
, making an unbeaten 117 himself. But that was the last of his 18 centuries and after a few matches in 1927, he retired.
After retirement, he was afflicted by arthritis and in his latter years was used a wheelchair. He died in 1959.
David Foot, confessing himself influenced by Robertson-Glasgow's description, wrote: "Johnson was the kind of batsman whose cover drive caused opposing fielders to stop and applaud before returning the ball."
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
on 5 August 1880 and died at Sidmouth
Sidmouth
Sidmouth is a small town on the English Channel coast in Devon, South West England. The town lies at the mouth of the River Sid in the East Devon district, south east of Exeter. It has a population of about 15,000, of whom 40% are over 65....
, 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...
on 1 July 1959, was a 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...
er who played for Cambridge University
Cambridge University Cricket Club
Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...
, 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...
and several amateur sides in a long first-class cricket
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...
career that stretched from 1900 to 1927. During his career, he appears to have been known, somewhat formally, as "P. R. Johnson"; modern websites refer to him as "Randall Johnson". Somerset colleague Jack MacBryan
Jack MacBryan
John "Jack" Crawford William MacBryan was an English cricketer who played for Cambridge University and Somerset and made one almost imperceptible appearance in a Test match for England...
, who didn't like him, called him "Peter Johnson".
Background
The son of George Randall Johnson who had captained Cambridge University at cricket in the 1850s and also played first-class cricket for CambridgeshireCambridgeshire County Cricket Club
Cambridgeshire 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 Cambridgeshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy.The club is based at The Avenue...
, Johnson was born in New Zealand, where his father was a member of the state legislature from 1872 to 1890. He was educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
.
Early cricket career
Johnson made his first-class debut for Cambridge University in a match against A. J. Webbe's XI in 1900, and played in five other first-class matches for the university side that season, without winning his blue. In his third game, he made 54 against MCCMarylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
.
His record in 1901 was similar, with one score of over 50 – he made 55 in the Cambridge match against Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
. But this time he was awarded his blue and played in the University match against Oxford University
Oxford University Cricket Club
Oxford University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England...
alongside his future Somerset county captain John Daniell
John Daniell (cricketer)
John Daniell, was an international rugby union player for England and a first-class cricketer for Somerset and Cambridge University Cricket Club....
. In this match and others in 1900 and 1901, Johnson was regarded as something of an all-rounder: he bowled right-arm fast, and took three second innings Oxford wickets for 41 runs in the 1901 University match. This was not his best bowling performance of the 1901 season. Against W. G. Grace
W. G. Grace
William Gilbert Grace, MRCS, LRCP was an English amateur cricketer who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest players of all time, having a special significance in terms of his importance to the development of the sport...
's London County
London County Cricket Club
London County Cricket Club was a short-lived cricket club founded by the Crystal Palace Company. In 1898 they invited WG Grace to help them form a first-class cricket club. Grace accepted the offer and became the club's secretary, manager and captain. As a result, he severed his connection with...
side, he took four for 99 and these remained the best bowling figures of his long career. In fact, 17 of the 20 wickets he took in his career came in these first two seasons: he bowled seldom after 1902, and after 1906 he bowled only twice more in first-class cricket.
In 1901 as well, Johnson made his debut for Somerset. The match was a first-class game against a South African side that did not play Tests. He opened the innings with Lionel Palairet
Lionel Palairet
Lionel Charles Hamilton Palairet was a famous cricketer of the so-called "Golden Age" of English cricket before the First World War...
and scored 11 and 46. Because the match was not a competitive one, questions of qualification for the county did not arise.
At the end of the English cricket season, Johnson joined a party of amateurs, most of them Oxford or Cambridge players and led by Bernard Bosanquet
Bernard Bosanquet (cricketer)
Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet was an English cricketer best known for inventing the googly, a delivery designed to deceive the batsman. When bowled, it appears to be a leg break, but after pitching the ball turns in the opposite direction to that which is expected, behaving as an off break instead...
, on a tour of North America on which two first-class matches were played.
County cricketer
From the 1902 season, Johnson began appearing in County ChampionshipCounty Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
matches for Somerset. His qualification for the county would appear to have been fairly flimsy: there is a story, which is also told of a later Somerset cricketer, Tom Lowry
Tom Lowry
Thomas Coleman Lowry was a New Zealand cricketer. He played in the first seven Test matches that New Zealand ever played, captaining the team in all of them....
, that the county put his birthplace down as Wellington, which was true, without bothering to volunteer that it was not, in fact, the town of that name in Somerset
Wellington, Somerset
Wellington is a small industrial town in rural Somerset, England, situated south west of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district, near the border with Devon, which runs along the Blackdown Hills to the south of the town...
. Employed as a stockbroker, he had time for fairly regular appearances in 1902 and 1903, fewer in 1904 and 1905, and then more again in 1906. From then until the First World War, Johnson appeared in only a handful of matches in each season, but for five seasons from 1921 to 1925 he was nearly always in the Somerset side, finally retiring after a few unsuccessful matches in 1927.
The historian of Somerset cricket, David Foot, depicts Johnson as a dashing Edwardian figure, always sporting a silk cravat while playing. Foot quotes the writer Christopher Hollis on Johnson in the 1920s: "Always faultlessly dressed, it was his habit to drive up to a match arrayed in top hat and spotless morning coat."
Johnson's statistics indicate his increasing stature as a batsman. In 1902, he averaged only 14 runs per innings; the following year the average was in the mid 20s and, with some exceptions, it was mostly over 30 in the years up to 1914. There was progression, too, in his highest innings. In 1902, he increased his highest score to 62 with an innings that enabled Somerset to draw against the Australians
Australian cricket team in England in 1902
The Australian cricket team toured England during the 1902 English cricket season. The five-Test series between the two countries has been fondly remembered; in 1967 the cricket writer A.A. Thomson described the series as "a rubber more exciting than any in history except the Australia v West...
. In 1903, he hit his first century, 110 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...
at Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
and followed that with 121 in the match against Sussex
Sussex County Cricket Club
Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...
at Taunton. In 1906, again at Worcester, he hit 163 and in that season he made 941 first-class runs, the nearest he got to 1000 in a season before the First World War.
Johnson's best season was 1908, when he topped the first-class averages for the English cricket season with 603 runs in eight innings. In fact, he played in only five matches that season, and one of those was so badly affected by rain that the Somerset side did not bat at all. In his first game, he made 164 and 131 against Middlesex
Middlesex 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...
at Taunton, the first time a Somerset cricketer had hit two centuries in a first-class match. The 164 in this match remained Johnson's highest-ever score. In the following match, 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...
he made 117 and 19. And then in his third match of the season, against Kent
Kent County Cricket Club
Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...
, he scored 31 and 126.
International cricket
A year after his trip with Bosanquet to North America, Johnson was part of a private team that toured New Zealand and Australia under the leadership of Lord Hawke in the 1902-03 season. Four years later, in the 1906-07 season, he went back to New Zealand with a MCCMarylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
side composed of amateur players that played 11 first-class matches in a three-month period. These were his only experiences of international cricket, though Foot writes, in his history of Somerset cricket: "It's well known that he was invited to go to Australia with the Warner-Douglas team" of 1911-12. But, he adds, "he thought hard about it, tried in vain to revise his business schedules and said no to likely fame."
In Foot's view, "with more spare time," Johnson "would have walked into the England side – and adorned it with that touch of elegance inseparable from his tall, distinctive presence."
Postwar cricket
Johnson served in the Middle East in the First World War where he was taken ill. He played little in 1919, but turned out in eight matches in 1920. Early in the 1921 season, he was picked as captain of the MCC side which played the all-conquering Australian teamAustralian cricket team in England in 1921
Australia won the 1921 Ashes series held in England. They won the first three matches against England, which meant that they had won eight in succession, an unequalled sequence in Ashes Tests, following the 5-0 drubbing they had administered to England in the 1920-21 season in Australia...
under Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Armstrong
Warwick Windridge Armstrong was an Australian cricketer who played 50 Test matches between 1902 and 1921. An all-rounder, he captained Australia in ten Test matches between 1920 and 1921 and was undefeated, winning eight Tests and drawing two...
, which may have been an indication that he was being considered for the Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
team, England having lost all five matches in the Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
series the previous winter. In the event, he was unable to bat in the second innings of the match because of a "damaged hand". R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, in a brief profile of Johnson, wrote: "Whatever this captaincy may have foreshadowed, Johnson, having a bone in his hand broken by a very fierce one from J. M. Gregory, dropped out of cricket for some weeks." In fact, Johnson was available for Somerset's next match only a week after the MCC game, but the call to Test cricket never came. In the season as a whole, he passed 1,000 runs for the only time in his career but Wisden noted that he was "brilliant rather than consistent".
Over the next few seasons, Johnson played regular county cricket for Somerset, averaging, after a poor 1922, in the 20s, and making a lot of catches in the slips. As late as 1926, when he was nearly 46 years of age, he was sharing in a last-wicket partnership of 139 in 95 minutes with Robertson-Glasgow against Surrey
Surrey County Cricket Club
Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...
at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
, making an unbeaten 117 himself. But that was the last of his 18 centuries and after a few matches in 1927, he retired.
After retirement, he was afflicted by arthritis and in his latter years was used a wheelchair. He died in 1959.
Style and personality
Robertson-Glasgow, as a young amateur coming into the Somerset side in the 1920s, was clearly in awe of Johnson and left a portrait of a cricketer of considerable panache. "P.R. Johnson's fame rests on batting comparable in style and fluency to that of Lionel Palairet," he wrote – Palairet was noted as a stylish batsman in the so-called "Golden Age" of late Victorian and Edwardian cricket. He added: "Tall and graceful, Randall Johnson in play against fast bowling is something to remember; and once, when he was bowled in the thirties, I heard an opponent, not fond of words or losing, remark: 'Well, I am sorry; that's the best of the day gone.'"David Foot, confessing himself influenced by Robertson-Glasgow's description, wrote: "Johnson was the kind of batsman whose cover drive caused opposing fielders to stop and applaud before returning the ball."