Frank Chester

Who was Frank Chester?

Frank Chester was briefly an English first-class cricketer before the First World War. After losing an arm in active service in 1917, he was a Test cricket umpire for 31 years. Wisden stated in his obituary that he "raised umpiring to a higher level than had ever been known in the history of cricket".

Chester was born in Bushey. An all-rounder, Alec Hearne suggested that he qualify for Worcestershire. Chester played as a left-handed middle-order batsman and a slow left-arm bowler in 55 first-class matches for Worcestershire as a teenager from 1912 to 1914. In 1913, when he was 17 years old, he scored 108 against Somerset to become the youngest player then to score a county century, a record that still stood until the 1950s. During 1913 Chester was summoned to meet Dr W G Grace who wished to congratulate him on a century scored at Lord's that season. He was praised in the 1913 Wisden as the "youngest professional regularly engaged in first-class cricket ... Very few players in the history of cricket have shown such form at the age of seventeen and a half". In 1914, he scored his highest first-class score, 178 not out, against Essex.