If you take a stroll down the promenade at Hythe, between the fish restaurant and the Imperial Hotel, you will pass a bench which has a small brass plate “dedicated to the cricketing Blaker twins, Barbara A. Hamilton April 1913 – April 2005, and Joan R. Smith April 1913 – August 2001”. So immediately the question arises, who were Barbara and Joan, and where and when did they play their cricket?  A little bit of research will show that the bench understates the importance of the twins and, indeed, the whole Blaker family to Kent cricket, through connections which date back over 170 years, to the 1840s.

The initial family connection is perhaps with Sussex cricket rather than Kent, for the twins’ great-grandfather, the Rev. Richard Blaker was vicar of Ifield in Sussex. He was also a keen cricketer who had played for Cambridge against Oxford in 1842 and 1843. The famous print of a cricket match between Sussex and Kent at Brighton, first published in 1849, features a portrait of Rev. Mr. Blaker among the spectators, although he was no doubt cheering on Sussex rather than the visitors. His son, Henry Blaker, played a few games for the Gentlemen of Sussex in the 1860s, but it was Henry’s son, Richard Norman Rowsell Blaker, born on 24^th October 1879, who established the strongest link with Kent cricket. Richard was born in London, but was raised in Kent where the family now lived, and was from a young age a fine sportsman. He went to Westminster School, where he captained the first XI cricket for four years, as well as playing centre-forward in the school’s football team. He first played cricket for Kent in 1898, when still at school. He went up to Cambridge University, like his father and grandfather before him, and won

his Blues for cricket from 1900 to 1902, and for football from 1899 to 1902. In the 1901 season, the Cambridge side contained another man destined to become a Kent stalwart, Sammy Day, and the Oxford team included Cloudesley ‘Slug’ Marsham and Ted Dillon, both future captains of Kent. So Dick Blaker was making all the right cricketing connections.

As an undergraduate, he was not able to play regularly for Kent, and did not particularly distinguish himself when he did. But he was a well-liked amateur batsman, and in those days that counted for a lot with those who picked the sides. After he left Cambridge, where his batting average was a mere 22.39, he followed his father’s footsteps into the law, and discovered that his new profession did not leave him much time to play cricket, although he still turned out eighteen times for Kent in 1903. He did manage to appear reasonably regularly in 1905 and 1906, however, and these were easily his two most prolific seasons. In 1906, Kent’s first Championship-winning season, he played twelve games, and finished with an average of just over 40. His style was elegant – as all amateurs tried to be in Edwardian times – but forceful. His first century, in 1905, lasted a mere 75 minutes. Unsurprisingly, with his score on 120, he was stumped. But his profession got the better of his cricket and he played his final match for Kent in 1908, aged only 28.

Ten days after his last game for the county, Blaker got married at Eltham, on the borders of Kent and south-east London, then the home and now the final resting place of WG Grace. Five years later, his wife gave birth to twins, named Joan and Barbara, who would become as firmly a part of Kent cricket as their father. Dick Blaker went on to serve on the county committee for 20 years and was elected President in 1950, but sadly died of a burst appendix before his year was out.

Barbara and Joan Blaker – as indistinguishable from each other as the Bedser twins

Joan and Barbara continued the family tradition of playing for Kent, although they also represented a number of other teams in an era when women’s cricket was not very organised. Both were forcing middle order batters, like their father, although Joan had a greater claim to being an all-rounder, as she was a regular name in the wickets columns of her time. Both sisters first played for Kent women in 1936, when they were 23 years old, although Barbara had played for Women’s Cricket Association teams since 1934. Barbara was a stalwart of the WCA Cricket Weeks in the late thirties, captaining her own eleven against what I suspect were equally scratch sides put out during the week. In both 1938 and 1939, during the WCA Weeks in Herefordshire, B.A. Blaker’s XI played matches against XIs led by other leading women players of the day. She was good enough to be picked for the England touring side due to go to the Antipodes at the end of 1939, but the war put an end to that venture, and neither Barbara nor Joan ever represented England.

Both sisters married during the war years, and by the time cricket resumed after the war, they were Barbara Hamilton and Joan Smith and now in their late thirties. After the war, Joan played far more games than Barbara, although both played for Kent until the early fifties. Barbara’s final game was in 1951, and Joan’s in 1955, by which time she was 42. Career statistics and averages are not possible to calculate as so many scorecards are missing, but both women were among the first names on any Kent team sheet for almost two decades before and after the Second World War.

It is entirely proper that the Blaker twins are among the first five women to be honoured with county caps during this, our 150^th year. Let’s just hope we get some cricket, both men’s and women’s, to watch before this summer is out.