Henry Wroth (cricketer)

Henry Thomas Wroth (6 April 1823 – 26 October 1861) was an English lawyer, a consular official and a cricketer who played in six first-class cricket matches for Cambridge University, between 1844 and 1846.^[1][2] He was born at Northchurch, Hertfordshire and died at Bebek, Constantinople, Turkey.

Wroth was educated at Uppingham School and St John's College, Cambridge.^[3] As a cricketer, he was a middle-order batsman and a bowler, though it is not known whether he was right- or left-handed, nor what his style of bowling was; in addition, full bowling analyses have not survived for most of his first-class matches. His best batting was in his only Cambridge University match of 1844 that has been accorded first-class status – the game against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in which he scored 26 and 34, though MCC won the match by an innings.^[4] In 1845 and in his single game in 1846, he was more successful as a bowler, and in the 1845 University Match against Oxford University he took six wickets, his side winning a low-scoring match.^[5]

Wroth graduated from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1846, and this converted to a Master of Arts in 1849; he was also awarded the Hulsean prize for his dissertation and made a fellow of St John's College.^[3] He became a lawyer and was called to the bar in 1851 as a member of the Inner Temple; he served as master in the supreme consular court at Constantinople and as vice-consul to the Ottoman Empire. He died there after a short illness in 1861.^[6]

Wroth's brother, Warwick Wroth, played first-class cricket in two matches in 1848, one each for Cambridge University and MCC.