Home Sports Cricket Roy Kilner – 1. His Death

Roy Kilner – 1. His Death

April 1928

Mexborough and Swinton Times April 6, 1928

Roy Kilner.
Sad Loss to South Yorkshire.
Great Cricketer.
Fatal Attack of Enteric Fever.

Roy Kilner, the famous Yorkshire and England cricketer, died in the Hospital, Barnsley, on Thursday night, at the age of 37.     He was a victim of enteric tever.

He reached his home at Wombwell on March 27 from India, where with Dolphin and Leyland (Yorksthire) and Brown (Hampshire) he had for six months been coaching the Rajindtra Cricket Club in the Punjab for the Maharajah of Patiala.

He was taken ill while travelling overland from Marseilles, and was treated by a doctor in London. At his own urgent request he was conveyed by ambulance to Wombwell, where he was seen by Dr: W. C. Jardine. Typhoid having been, diagnosed, he was admitted the following day to hospital at Barnsley.

As might have been supposed a man of such fine physique and personal grit, which has so often served to turn an impending what defeat for his county into a victory, made a great fight for his life. He showed the old fighting ‘Spirit’, but the odds this time were overwhelming.

With a smile on his lips and an occasional word of comfort for his wife who watched him anxiously, he gradually weakened, haemorrhage sapping away his strength.

From the first his case was regarded as one of great gravity owing to the fact that an operation for appendicitis in left him weak when he ought to be strong in order to combat the disease with which he had been smitten. The malady had got a firm grip on his constitution, and his condition became more and more critical. The hospital staff fought tenaciously to save him, and the fact that he was reported at one time to be “holding his own” gave rise to the hope that he would survive the crisis.

On Sunday, April 1, however, he took a turn for the worse, and from that day onward grave possibilities were feared. He endured, much suffering during the last 24 hours, but the end was peaceful. Just before his death he was visited by his parents. His wife, who bore the deal with great fortitude, was at his bed side when he breathed his last. It was thought that the fatal illness might have been, attributed to his eating oysters which had become infected, just before be left India.

The news of the great cricketer’s death caused profound sorrow everywhere and South Yorkshire was dazed with the tragic tidings.

Grief was expressed at Wombwell in many ways. A flag was flown at half-mast from the town hall and a similar tribute was played at the Wombwell football ground and at the Denaby Main football ground on Good Friday, where Wombwell, wearing black armlets, were the visitors. Roy’s doubts cast a shadow over the holidays. Though a cricketer first and last, Kilner was regarded as the greatest townsmen as ever produced.

Striking tributes were paid to Kilner by the Press in the country last weekend, and a comprehensive record of his career appeared in the Yorkshire Post