The Reverend Vernon Peter Fanshawe Archer Royle was an English first-class cricketer who played in a single Test match for England in Australia and later became a schoolmaster.
Background
He was born at Brooklands, then considered part of Sale, Cheshire and died at Stanmore, Middlesex, England. He was the third son of a surgeon, Peter Royle, and Mariann Fanshawe, and was educated at Rossall School and Brasenose College, Oxford.
Career
Royle played cricket for Lancashire from 1873 and for Oxford University in 1875 and 1876, winning a Blue both years. His record at Oxford was modest, and he passed 50 only once, making an unbeaten 67 in the match against Middlesex at Prince"s Cricket Ground, Chelsea in 1876, when he batted at Number 9 and where his runs were part of an Oxford total of 612, the highest score ever made at Prince"son After Oxford, he returned to fairly regular cricket for Lancashire for two seasons and in 1878 he hit his highest score, an innings of 81 against Kent at Town Malling.
He is generally regarded as being the greatest "cover point" of all time, and many books have described the fear he engendered in batsmen when on the pitch.
Only a rash batsman dared to try for a quick run. In 1919, when The Times was wanting to make a comparison with Jack Hobbs" prowess as a cover-point field, it cited Gilbert Jessop and Syd Gregory, two long-standing and famous cricketers, plus the relatively unknown Vernon Royle, as Hobbs" only equals.
However, after the tour he retired from cricket and took up full-time teaching at Elstree School, though he returned to Lancashire and to various amateur teams for occasional matches through to 1886 and as late as 1891 played for Lancashire in a game against Master Control Console at Lord"son He was ordained in 1892 when he was a schoolmaster at Elstree.
He subsequently became headmaster fleetingly at Elstree before moving to Stanmore Park school, where he was headmaster from 1901 until his death.
Views
Quotations:
"He was ambidextrous, very quick on his feet and smart in return,". "Woa, mate, there"s a policeman,".
Membership
Despite this fairly modest record as a batsman (which was little different from that of several other amateur members of the team), Royle was a member of Lord Harris"s cricket team to tour Australia in 1878-1879, which played one match against Australia.