Charles Hoare (cricketer, born 1847)

Charles Arthur Richard Hoare (18 May 1847 — 22 May 1908) was an English cricketer and a banker. He was a right-handed batsman who played for Kent. He was born in Blackfriars and died in West Meon.

Career

Born the son of Peter Richard Hoare, the younger and Lady Sophia Marsham (daughter of Charles Marsham, 2nd Earl of Romney), Hoare received no formal education on account of his lameness. He made a single first-class cricket appearance during the 1872 season, in a twelve-a-side game against the Gentlemen of Marylebone Cricket Club, in which he, as a tailend batsman, scored 14 in the first innings and 4 in the second.

Following his father's death, in 1877, Hoare became Senior Partner of the banking firm C. Hoare & Co and owner of Kelsey Park in Beckenham. He also became Master of the Vale of White Horse Hunt. In the late 1870s he began a relationship with Beatrice Holme-Sumner, who at that time was a minor; the affair became public when members of Holme-Sumner's family sought a court order restricting Hoare from continuing the relationship and demanding his committal to prison. The judge rejected the application to imprison Hoare.

In 1885 Hoare founded TS Mercury at Binstead on the Isle of Wight as a charitable venture formed with the objective of rescuing poor boys of good character and training them for naval service. After a sustained period of absence from the Bank, on account of his pursuit of his cricket, hunting and personal interests, Hoare was dismissed as Senior Partner of the Bank in 1888. The entire TS Mercury establishment, with its captain-superintendent, Charles Hoare, moved from Binstead to Hamble near Southampton in 1892. In June 1898, following Beatrice Holme-Sumner's marriage to the cricketer, C. B. Fry, Hoare retired to West Meon where he died in May 1908.

Family

In 1867 Hoare married Margaret Short; they had four sons and one daughter. He also had a son (Robin Hoare) and a daughter by his relationship with Beatrice Holme-Sumner.