William Richard Hillyer (5 March 1813 – 8 January 1861), was a prominent 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 for Kent County Cricket Club

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...

, 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...

 and many other sides in the days before county and international cricket was organised into regular competitions.

Hillyer was born at Leybourne

Leybourne

Leybourne is a small village in Kent, England situated off Junction 4 of the M20 Motorway. Leybourne is adjacent to Larkfield and West Malling....

 and died at Maidstone

Maidstone

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...

. Although a mediocre right-handed batsman, Hillyer was a prolific and fearsome round-arm fast bowler who took the most first-class wickets in English cricket in each of eight consecutive first-class seasons from 1842 to 1849, spanning the era from the decline of Alfred Mynn

Alfred Mynn

Alfred Mynn was an English cricketer during the game's "Roundarm Era". He was a genuine all-rounder, being both an attacking right-handed batsman and a formidable right arm fast bowler. The noted cricket writer John Woodcock ranked him as the fourth greatest cricketer of all time. Simon Wilde...

 and William Lillywhite

William Lillywhite

Frederick William Lillywhite was a famous English cricketer during the game's roundarm era...

 up to the emergence of John Wisden

John Wisden

John Wisden was an English cricketer who played 190 first-class cricket matches for three English county cricket teams, Kent, Middlesex and Sussex...

 in 1850.

On statistical grounds alone, Hillyer appears to have no peers across the 1840s. In 1845, he a set a record by taking 174 wickets in 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...

 – his nearest rival, Jemmy Dean

Jemmy Dean

James "Jemmy" Dean was an English cricketer who played for Sussex County Cricket Club in the 19th century....

 took just 100. As an itinerant professional, he played matches mainly for Kent and MCC, and increasingly for the All-England Eleven

William Clarke's All-England Eleven

The All-England Eleven was an itinerant all-professional first-class cricket team created in 1846 by Nottinghamshire cricketer William Clarke. Widely known by its acronym AEE, it took advantage of opportunities offered by the newly developed railways to play against local teams throughout Great...

.

External sources

• CricketArchive profile and statistical database

Further reading

• H S Altham
  Harry Altham
  Harry Surtees Altham, CBE, DSO, MC was an English cricketer who became an important figure in the game as an administrator, historian and coach. His Wisden obituary described him as "among the best known personalities in the world of cricket"...
  
  , A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin, 1926
• Derek Birley
  Derek Birley
  Sir Derek Birley was an English educator and writer who had a strong interest in sport, especially cricket.He was educated at grammar school in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, and at Queens' College, Cambridge University....
  
  , A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
• Rowland Bowen
  Rowland Bowen
  Major Rowland Francis Bowen was a cricket researcher, historian and writer....
  
  , Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
• Arthur Haygarth
  Arthur Haygarth
  Arthur Haygarth was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians....
  
  , Scores & Biographies, Volumes 3-9 (1841-1866), Lillywhite, 1862-1867