Robert Porch
{{Short description|English cricketer}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox cricketer
| name = Robert Porch
| image =
| country = England
| fullname = Robert Bagehot Porch
| height =
| nickname =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1875|4|3|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1962|10|29|1875|4|3|df=yes}}
| death_place = Great Malvern, Worcestershire, England
| batting = Right-handed
| bowling = Right-arm leg-break
| role = Batsman
| family =
| club1 = Somerset
| year1 = {{nowrap|1895–1910}}
| type1 = First-class
| debutdate1 = 20 May
| debutyear1 = 1895
| debutfor1 = Somerset
| debutagainst1 = Oxford University
| lastdate1 = 31 August
| lastyear1 = 1910
| lastfor1 = Somerset
| lastagainst1 = Yorkshire
| columns = 1
| column1 = First-class
| matches1 = 27
| runs1 = 665
| bat avg1 = 15.46
| 100s/50s1 = –/1
| top score1 = 85*
| deliveries1 = 85
| wickets1 = –
| bowl avg1 = –
| fivefor1 = –
| tenfor1 = –
| best bowling1 = –
| catches/stumpings1 = 10/–
| date = 15 September
| year = 2010
| source = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/3/3763/3763.html CricketArchive
}}
Robert Bagehot Porch (3 April 1875 – 29 October 1962) played first-class cricket for Somerset from 1895 to 1910.{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/3/3763/3763.html| title = Robert Porch| publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 15 September 2010}} He was born at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and died at Great Malvern, Worcestershire.
Family and background
Porch's family were prominent bankers in the company of Reeves and Porch in the Somerset town of Glastonbury and both his grandfather, Thomas Porch Porch (originally named Thomas Porch Reeves), and his father, John Albert Porch, were long-serving members of the town council and mayor of Glastonbury three times each.{{cite web| url = http://www.glastonbury.gov.uk/g_gov/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=3508&page_id=131| title = Past Mayors of Glastonbury| publisher = www.glastonbury.gov.uk| accessdate = 15 September 2010| url-status = dead| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724153630/http://www.glastonbury.gov.uk/g_gov/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=3508&page_id=131| archivedate = 24 July 2011| df = dmy-all}} Porch's mother was Margaret Bagehot from Langport, a cousin of the economist and political writer Walter Bagehot; the Bagehots were also prominent Somerset bankers and the family firm was Stuckey's of Langport, which had taken over Reeves and Porch and which was in Victorian times the second largest producer of banknotes in England after the Bank of England.{{cite web| url = http://www.glastonbury.gov.uk/g_gov/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=3508&page_id=196| title = John Albert Porch| publisher = www.glastonbury.gov.uk| accessdate = 15 September 2010| url-status = dead| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724153708/http://www.glastonbury.gov.uk/g_gov/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=3508&page_id=196| archivedate = 24 July 2011| df = dmy-all}} The colonial administrator Montague Phippen Porch (1877–1964), who became the third husband of Jennie Jerome and therefore the stepfather of Winston Churchill in 1918 (though three years younger than Churchill), was Robert Porch's first cousin.{{cite web | url = http://www.maximiliangenealogy.co.uk/database%20md2000/dat973.html#11| title = Maximilian Genealogy database| publisher = www.maximiliangenealogy.co.uk| accessdate = 15 September 2010}} The Porch family's wealth was based on the bank, but a run on the bank in the early 20th century meant that the estate at Edgarley in Glastonbury was broken up on Robert Porch's father's death in 1914.{{cite web| url=https://glastonbury.gov.uk/council/civic-history/a-personal-history-of-glastonbury/ | title = A personal history of Glastonbury over the past 55 years| author = John Brunsdon| publisher = www.glastonbury.gov.uk| accessdate = 27 March 2024}}
Robert Porch was educated at Malvern College where he was a member of the first eleven at cricket and second eleven at football, and a school prefect.{{cite web | url = https://archive.org/stream/malvernregister00malgoog/malvernregister00malgoog_djvu.txt| title = Malvern College register 1865–1904 | accessdate = 15 September 2010}} He then studied at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating in 1898.
Cricket career
Porch was a right-handed middle-order batsman. He did not appear in first-class cricket for Oxford University, but when Somerset played the university side in 1895, he played for the county team, scoring 11 and 42.{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/4/4306.html| title = Scorecard: Oxford University v Somerset |date= 20 May 1895 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 15 September 2010}} At the end of the university term, he became a fairly regular player for Somerset in the second half of the 1895 season. In his third first-class match, against Essex at Taunton, he scored an unbeaten 85, and this was to be the highest score of his cricket career; he was upstaged in the match, however, by the Essex total of 692, which was the highest total for the county for 95 years until beaten in 1990.{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/4/4383.html| title = Scorecard: Somerset v Essex | date= 11 July 1895 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 15 September 2010}}{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Records/England/Firstclass/Essex/Team_Records/Highest_Team_Total_For.html| title = Scorecard: Highest Team Totals for Essex | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 15 September 2010}} Even that Essex record was upstaged in Porch's next match for Somerset at Taunton, though, when Lancashire made 801, with Archie MacLaren setting a world record for the highest first-class score by making 424.{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/4/4390.html| title = Scorecard: Somerset v Lancashire | date= 15 July 1895 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 15 September 2010}} In his obituary published in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1964, Porch was quoted, apparently without irony, as "a great believer in the importance of fielding".{{Cite book | title = Wisden Cricketers' Almanack | edition = 1964 | publisher = Wisden | chapter = Obituary, 1962 | page = 954}} The obituary says that his maxim was: "Save six fours when the other side is batting, and you have 24 to your name before you get off the mark, though it's not in the score-book."
Porch appeared again for Somerset in the matches at Oxford in 1896 and 1897, and played other matches for the county after the Oxford term was over in both seasons, though with little success. He then played twice in 1901, and once each in 1902 and 1903, and a final single match in 1910. In 1904 he became a master at his old school, Malvern College. He was also president of the old Malvernians' club, the Malvernian Society.