| Player: | W McIntyre |
The brother of Michael McIntyre (Nottinghamshire 1864) and Martin McIntyre (Nottinghanshire 1868-77). He was 5ft. 9 inches tall and weighed just over 12 stone. A right-hand lower order batsman, a right-arm fast bowler, who usually fielded in the slips.
He is first recorded as playing for Eastwood in 1866 and took his first professional engagement the following year, with the Nottingham Commercial Club, at Trent Bridge.
Nottinghamshire gave him a trial in the Colts match in 1868 and a few weeks later, playing for Eighteen of the Nottingham Commercial Club against the All England Eleven he took 9 wickets for 26 runs in the first innings and a further five wickets in the second.
On 22nd to 24th June 1869 he was selected for the Nottinghamshire team for their match against Kent at Tunbridge Wells, taking three wickets for 77 runs. A month later in the return fixture at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire were 277 for eight wickets when he joined George Wootton at the wicket. They added 165 runs to set a new ninth wicket partnership record and he scored 99 runs, which was to remain his highest first-class score.
In 1870 he took up an engagement at Bolton Cricket Club, where he stayed until 1877. He lived in Bolton and had qualified for Lancashire by the beginning of 1872. His three matches for the county in 1872 yielded 41 wickets for 232 runs, including 5/15 and 7/23 against Derbyshire at Derby, when he bowled unchanged through both Derbyshire innings with Alex Watson the first of six occasions that this occurred during his stay with Lancashire.
He played successfully for Lancashire for nine seasons. At the end of the 1877 season he left the Bolton Club and a benefit match, A.N.Hornby's XI v Sixteen of Bolton, was held for him on 14th September. He then took an engagement with the Castleton Club, Rochdale, which lasted until 1882.
The 1881 Census finds him living at 2 Ellen Street, Castleton, aged 36, a professional cricketer, with his wife, Mary, aged 34 born at Eastwood. They have six children, John aged 14, a telegraph boy, Maria aged 13, a tenter for a cotton weaver, and Ellen aged 11, all born at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, and James aged 6, Mary aged 4, born in Bolton, and Catherine aged 1 born at Rochdale.
The Lancashire v Gloucestershire match, at Old Trafford, on 21st July 1881, was for his benefit, and he received the sum of £1,000.
He died in the Asylum at Prestwich at the early age of 48 and is buried in Bolton Cemetery.
(Article: Copyright © 2004 Don Ambrose)