Major Booth Killed on the Somme — Yorkshire All-Rounder, July 1916

Major Booth was named after his uncle. He had taken 100 wickets in five different seasons for Yorkshire. His Test career, brief but promising, ran across the 1913-14 South African series.

The Leeds Pals were one of the New Army Pals battalions raised in 1914, drawing recruits from Leeds, Bradford and the West Riding. Booth joined as a private and was commissioned by 1916.

Booth was Yorkshire's all-round prospect of the immediate pre-war years. In 1913 he scored over 1,200 runs and took 181 wickets; he toured South Africa with England in 1913-14 and played two Tests, taking seven wickets. He was a fast-medium bowler with a high action and a useful lower-order bat. When the Leeds Pals battalion was raised in 1914 he enlisted; many of his Yorkshire team-mates joined the same unit. On the morning of 1 July 1916 the Pals went over the top at Serre, on the northern flank of the Somme attack. The battalion was almost wiped out within minutes by German machine-gun fire. Booth was hit by shrapnel near a German wire emplacement; his fellow Yorkshire cricketer Abe Waddington reportedly held him in a shell-hole as he died. His body was not recovered until a Yorkshire battalion returned to the position the following spring; he is now buried at Serre Road Cemetery No. 1.

“He had the makings of a great cricketer.”

Booth's body was identified months later; he is buried at Serre Road Cemetery No. 1. Yorkshire CCC commissioned a memorial. His sister kept the case in which his cricket caps and medals were displayed.