William Gilbert Grace, MRCS

Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons

MRCS is a professional qualification for surgeons in the UK and IrelandIt means Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the United Kingdom, doctors who gain this qualification traditionally no longer use the title 'Dr' but start to use the title 'Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss' or 'Ms'.There are 4 surgical...

, LRCP

Royal College of Physicians

The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

(born 18 July 1848 at Downend

Downend, South Gloucestershire

Downend is a suburb of Bristol in South Gloucestershire, England. It is located to the North East of Bristol and bordered by the Bristol City suburb of Fishponds to its south west and the South Gloucestershire suburbs of Staple Hill to the south, Frenchay to the west and Mangotsfield to the East...

, near Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

; died 23 October 1915 at Mottingham

Mottingham

Mottingham is a district of south London, England; located at the convergence of the London Borough of Bromley, the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich...

, Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

) was an English amateur

Amateur status in first-class cricket

Amateur status in first-class cricket had a special meaning, especially in England, in that the amateur in this context was not merely someone who played cricket in his spare time but a particular type of first-class cricketer who existed officially until 1962, when the distinction between amateurs...

 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 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. Universally known as "W.G.", he played 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...

 for a record-equalling 44 seasons, from 1865 to 1908, during which he captained England, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....

, the Gentlemen

Gentlemen v Players

The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...

, MCC

Marylebone 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...

, the United South of England Eleven

United South of England Eleven

The United South of England Eleven was an itinerant cricket team founded in November 1864 by Edgar Willsher, as secretary, and John Lillywhite, as treasurer....

 and several other teams. He came from a cricketing family in which one of his elder brothers was E.M.