Kenneth Hutchings Killed at Ginchy — Kent and England Batsman, September 1916

Hutchings was educated at Tonbridge, played for Kent from 1902, and was part of the championship-winning sides of 1906 and 1909. His 1907-08 tour to Australia was the high point of his cricket career.

He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment and posted to the Western Front in 1915. By August 1916 his battalion was involved in the later phases of the Somme offensive.

Hutchings was Kent's most attractive batsman of the immediate pre-war years — tall, hard-hitting, immensely popular at Canterbury. He played seven Tests for England, scoring 341 runs including a memorable 126 in the second innings of the Melbourne Test in January 1908 against an Australia attack including Tibby Cotter and Monty Noble. By 1912 he had largely retired from county cricket to concentrate on his job in business. When war broke out he enlisted in the King's Liverpool Regiment and was commissioned. On 3 September 1916, during the British attack on Ginchy as part of the Battle of the Somme, he was killed instantly by a shell while leading his platoon. He was buried at Guillemont Road Cemetery. Within twelve months Cotter, his old Australian opponent, would also be killed.

“A magnificent driver of the ball, with a natural eye and the courage to use it.”

Buried at Guillemont Road Cemetery, France. His name was added to the Tonbridge School memorial and to Kent's roll of cricketers killed in the war.