Rupert Horsley

Rupert Harry Horsley (17 December 1905 – 5 March 1988) was a teacher, an English first-class cricketer, an amateur painter of some skill, and a keen and knowledgeable gardener.

Early life

The son of Albert Beresford Horsley, and older brother of Sir Peter Horsley, he was born in December 1905 at West Hartlepool. He was educated at the Dragon School and Winchester College; from there he won an Exhibition to study history at Brasenose College, Oxford. While studying at Oxford, he made three appearances as a wicket-keeper in first-class cricket for Oxford University in 1927, against Lancashire, Harlequins and the Free Foresters. In his three matches, he scored 78 runs with a high score of 25, and behind the stumps he took nine catches and made a single stumping. During his time at Oxford, he was always second choice wicket-keeper to the exceptional George Abell. and also supported a refugee, Frau Koder, near Graz in Austria, who had become separated from her son and family during the war. This support helped her to build her own house after many years spent in displaced persons camps.

Personal life Retiring for a second time in 1970 he spent much of the rest of his life either gardening or painting, holding numerous one man exhibitions of his watercolours up and down the country - in London, Newcastle, Durham, Leicester, York, Oxford, Plymouth, Salisbury, Winchester, and Wetton in the Peak District. He liked to paint outside whatever the weather, and his favourite subjects were Venice, the Lake District, Devon/Cornwall, the North East, and the chalk streams and landscapes of Hampshire. He was a member of the Art Workers Guild. His ability to paint represented a victory over his earlier ill health, which caused considerable loss of feeling in his hands and feet. He had to re-learn to write, and to the end of his life continued to guide and steady his right hand with his left.

He married Joyce Muriel Paine in 1943 and had two sons. He died in Nether Wallop, Hampshire while gardening at his home.