John Harcombe

John Dowie Harcombe (13 March 1883 – 19 July 1954) played first-class cricket for Somerset in seven matches stretched across the years from 1905 to 1919.^[1] He was born at Cape Town in South Africa and died at Taunton, Somerset.

Cricket career[]

Harcombe was a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm slow bowler. He played for Somerset in three matches in 1905, one more in 1914 and then a final three in 1919. He had limited success both as a batsman and as a bowler. His only wickets were taken in his very first match, against Lancashire in 1905.^[2] As a batsman he reached double figures only twice in a dozen innings and his highest score was 29, made batting at No 11 in his second first-class match, against Kent in 1905.^[3] Harcombe settled in Kenya and played minor cricket there for the Settlers side in the 1920s and 1930s.^[4]

War service[]

Harcombe enlisted as a soldier with the Somerset Light Infantry in the First World War and was a sergeant when he was commissioned in 1916 as a temporary second lieutenant and transferred to the Devonshire Regiment.^[5] Earlier in the same year he had been awarded the Military Medal.^[6] In 1917 he was granted the rank of acting captain while serving as an adjutant to the Devonshire Regiment.^[7] He was allowed to retain the rank of captain when discharged as a second lieutenant in February 1919.^[8]

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