Captain Francis Bernard Roberts (20 May 1882 – 8 February 1916) [1] was an English cricketer and member of the British Armed Forces who was killed in World War I. A right-handed batsman and right-arm fast bowler whose brother Arthur also played first-class cricket, Roberts was born in Nasik in India and played for Cambridge University and Gloucestershire, [2] minor county cricket for Oxfordshire and for his alma mater Magdalen College School, Oxford [1] (1894-1898) and Rossall School (1898-1901). [3] Roberts' first-class career spanned 1903 to 1914 on the outbreak of World War I, across eighty matches where he scored 2,566 runs at a batting average of 20.36 with five centuries and a best of 157. With the ball he took 88 wickets. [4]
A graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, [5] he served during the First World War as a captain in the 9th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He was killed in February 1916 in Belgium aged thirty-three. [6] [7]
Captain Francis Bernard Roberts (20 May 1882 – 8 February 1916) [1] was an English cricketer and member of the British Armed Forces who was killed in World War I. A right-handed batsman and right-arm fast bowler whose brother Arthur also played first-class cricket, Roberts was born in Nasik in India and played for Cambridge University and Gloucestershire, [2] minor county cricket for Oxfordshire and for his alma mater Magdalen College School, Oxford [1] (1894-1898) and Rossall School (1898-1901). [3] Roberts' first-class career spanned 1903 to 1914 on the outbreak of World War I, across eighty matches where he scored 2,566 runs at a batting average of 20.36 with five centuries and a best of 157. With the ball he took 88 wickets. [4]
A graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, [5] he served during the First World War as a captain in the 9th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He was killed in February 1916 in Belgium aged thirty-three. [6] [7]