William Eric Bowes (25 July 1908 – 4 September 1987) was an English professional cricketer active from 1929 to 1947 who played in 372 first-class matches as a right arm fast bowler and a right-handed tail end batsman. He took 1,639 wickets with a best performance of nine for 121 and completed ten wickets in a match 27 times. He scored 1,531 runs with a highest score of 43* and is one of very few major players whose career total of wickets taken exceeded his career total of runs scored. He did not rate himself as a fielder but he nevertheless held 138 catches.
Bowes played for Yorkshire and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). He was a member of the ground staff at MCC for ten seasons and they had priority of selection, which meant he played against Yorkshire for them and he did not play against MCC until 1938. He made fifteen appearances for England in Test cricket and took part in the 1932–33 Bodyline series. He took 68 Test wickets at the creditable average of 22.33 with a best performance of six for 33. Bowes represented Yorkshire in thirteen County Championship seasons, his career being interrupted by the Second World War, and the team won the championship eight times in that period, largely due to their strong attack which was led by Hedley Verity and himself.
During the war, Bowes was commissioned in the British Army as a gunnery officer and served in North Africa until he was captured, along with over 30,000 other Allied troops, after the fall of Tobruk in June 1942. He spent three years in Italian and German prisoner-of-war camps and lost over four stone in weight. He continued playing for two seasons after the war but, weakened by his experiences, could only bowl at medium pace. After he retired from playing, he became a coach with Yorkshire and worked for The Yorkshire Post as a cricket writer.
Bill Bowes was born in Elland on 25 July 1908. His father, John Bowes, was a railwayman whose job with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway caused the family to relocate often. In 1914, they settled in Armley, Leeds, after he became a goods superintendent there. In his 1949 autobiography, Express Deliveries, Bowes says that he never had any boyhood aspiration to become a professional cricketer, rather he "just slipped into the game". He played street cricket with other boys and he began watching the local Armley club, whose ground was near his home. He particularly admired an Armley pace bowler called Tommy Drake and decided to copy his action so that, throughout his career as a top-class bowler, his delivery was always "as near Tommy Drake's as possible". Bowes went on to represent his two schools, Armley Park Council School and West Leeds High School, at cricket. At the latter, he gained his school cap after taking a hat trick.
After leaving school in 1924, Bowes worked in a Leeds estate agency but continued to play cricket at weekends for a Wesleyan Sunday school team in Armley and he was the club secretary for a time. He did this for the next two years until, just after Easter in 1927, he was invited by a casual acquaintance to join the Kirkstall Educational Cricket Club in northwest Leeds. In his debut match for Kirkstall's second team, he took six wickets for only five runs, including a hat trick, and the spectators organised a collection for him. Bowes now found a mentor in John Kaye, one of the club's committee members, who was to play in instrumental part in his eventual career with Yorkshire. Bowes had a successful season with Kirkstall in 1927 and began receiving offers from other league clubs to turn professional, some of the offers being more for one match than he earned in a week at the estate agency. However, Kaye and his colleagues were determined to keep him at Kirkstall until they could arrange for him to play professionally at county level.
With no apparent interest from Yorkshire at this stage, an approach was made to Warwickshire and they responded by offering Bowes a trial in April 1928. However, at the end of the 1927 season, MCC announced an intention to play against all first-class counties in 1928 and wanted to increase its professional ground staff, based at Lord's Cricket Ground. Bowes decided to apply and was invited to a trial in January 1928. At the trial, he bowled on "a net pitch of matting laid on concrete". Among the batsmen facing him were Pelham Warner and the MCC assistant secretary Ronnie Aird. Bowes made a distinct impression on them which resulted in his being offered an engagement on the Lord's ground staff for the 1928 season at £5 a week.
Soon afterwards, he was contacted by Yorkshire's secretary Frederick Toone following a request to Yorkshire by John Kaye. Toone recommended the engagement with MCC rather than Warwickshire, suggesting that Bowes would find greater scope for development at Lord's and, with Yorkshire's interests at heart, pointed out that he would be available to play for Yorkshire when not required by MCC. Bowes was impressed and turned down the Warwickshire offer. He quit his job at the estate agency and joined MCC on 15 April 1928, having negotiated a raise in his wage to £6 a week.
Bowes gained valuable early experience with the Lord's ground staff and was especially grateful for coaching he received from Walter Brearley. He began his first-class career playing for MCC in 1928. Still aged nineteen, he made his first-class debut 30 May to 1 June playing against Wales at Lord's, taking three for 37 and two for 32. Neither Bowes himself nor J. M. Kilburn saw merit in that game which is currently rated first-class by CricketArchive. Kilburn wrote that Bowes' "first match of first-class rating" was MCC v Cambridge University played 4 to 6 July at Lord's. In this, Bowes took four for 20, including a hat trick, and two for 18. This achievement was noted in Yorkshire and, although Bowes did not play in any further first-class matches in 1928, the county club included him in their plans for 1929.
Following further appeals to Yorkshire by John Kaye, Bowes was invited in November to meet the club president, Lord Hawke, who concluded a formal agreement with MCC that Bowes should be made available to play for Yorkshire in 1929 when not required by any MCC teams.
Bowes made his first-class debut for Yorkshire against Oxford University at The Parks 8 to 10 May 1929. He took two for 28 and none for 40. In Yorkshire's next match, against Essex at the County Ground, Leyton, Bowes made his County Championship debut. He joined a full Yorkshire team that included the all-time greats Wilfred Rhodes and Herbert Sutcliffe. It also included Emmott Robinson, the great character of Yorkshire cricket who was much eulogised by Neville Cardus, and Robinson willingly became Bowes' mentor in his early Yorkshire career. Bowes took none for nineteen in the Essex first innings but did not bowl in the second as Rhodes, then aged 51, destroyed Essex with nine for 39 including one spell of seven wickets in 28 balls. Yorkshire won by an innings and 37 runs, Maurice Leyland having scored 134.
Yorkshire at this time was in a period of transition. They had won the championship four times between 1922 and 1925 but had since then been overshadowed by their great rivals Lancashire who had won the title in each of the preceding three seasons. In 1929, Yorkshire and Lancashire tied on points as runners-up, the title going to Nottinghamshire. Yorkshire's team relied on the experience and leadership of the veterans Rhodes and Robinson and on the expertise of established professionals like Sutcliffe, his opening partner Percy Holmes, Leyland and bowler George Macaulay. Otherwise, the team consisted of up and coming players who were effectively on trial and there was competition for places. Bowes, for example, had Frank Dennis as his main rival for the role of pace bowler. Other aspiring players active in 1929 were Wilf Barber, Horace Fisher, Arthur Wood and Cyril Turner while Arthur Mitchell had gained his county cap the previous year. Waiting in the wings, however, was Hedley Verity who was then playing in the Lancashire League and made his Yorkshire debut in 1930.