WANOSTROCHT, Nicholas

1804 - 1876  (71 years)

• Name	WANOSTROCHT, Nicholas
  Born	5 Oct 1804	Camberwell
  Gender	Male
  Died	1876
  Person ID	I22551	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023

  
  

  Father	WANOSTROCHT, Vincent,   b. 28 Jul 1783, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France ,   d. Abt 1824, Southwark, Surrey, England  (Age 40 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	GIBLIN, Mary Bridget,   b. 20 Dec 1781, Saling, Essex, England ,   d. 19 Mar 1824, Southwark, Surrey, England  (Age 42 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Married	22 Jun 1802	St Andrew's Holborn, Middlesex, England
  Family ID	F6028	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos » Slide Show		Nicholas "Felix" Wanostrocht (7th from right) in the All England XI
  		Father-Often-Says,-Study-Is-Useless-Unless-You-Prove-Yourself,-1851-2 by Nicholas "Felix" Wanostrocht
  		260px-Nicholas_Felix
  		England at the Oval1851 by Nicholas "Felix" Wanostrocht

  
  

• Notes

  Nicholas "Felix" Wanostrocht (born 5 October 1804 at Camberwell, London; died 3 September 1876 at Wimborne Minster, Dorset) was a noted English amateur ("Gentleman") cricketer. He is one of the few players who - at his request - was routinely known by his nickname, which was in effect a pseudonym. When his father died in 1824 he had inherited the running of his school, aged only nineteen, and he was afraid that the parents of pupils might think that cricket was too frivolous a pastime for a schoolmaster. He was a specialist left-handed batsman, though he did occasionally bowl underarm slow left-arm orthodox. Felix was a mainstay of the great Kent team of the mid-19th century alongside such players as Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch, William Hillyer and Ned Wenman. In the words of the famous elegy, best loved of Bernard Darwin, And with five such mighty cricketers 'twas but natural to win As Felix, Wenman, Hillyer, Fuller Pilch and Alfred Mynn. He played for Kent from 1830 until 1852. He also appeared for MCC and was a popular member of the All-England Eleven. In his overall first-class career, Felix played in 149 matches and had 264 innings including 13 not out. He scored 4,556 runs at 18.15 with a highest score of 113. He made 2 centuries, 15 fifties and took 112 catches. It should be remembered when studying his batting average that he played at a time when prevailing conditions greatly favoured bowlers. Felix was rated very highly by his contemporaries. He was the author of a famous instruction book: Felix on the Bat, Baily Bros, 1845. He also invented the Catapulta (a bowling machine) as well as India-rubber batting gloves. A man of many talents, he was also a classical scholar, musician, linguist, inventor, writer and artist. Felix is buried in Wimborne cemetery. WANOSTROCHT, NICHOLAS (1804–1876), author of ‘Felix on the Bat,’ eldest son of Vincent Wanostrocht, was born at Camberwell on 5 Oct. 1804. His great-uncle (his father's uncle), Nicolas Wanostrocht (1745–1812), who is believed to have been of Belgian origin, came over to England, after some residence in France, about 1780, and was appointed French tutor in the family of Henry Bathurst, second earl Bathurst [q. v.] A few years after his arrival he founded a school known as the Alfred House Academy near Camberwell Green, ‘a spot very convenient on account of the coaches going to and from London every hour’ (see his flowery prospectus in the British Museum Library, dated 1795). Among his numerous compilations the most noteworthy are ‘A Practical Grammar of the French Language’ (London, 1780, 12mo; 19th edit. revised by Tarver, 1839); ‘Classical Vocabulary, French and English. … to which is added a Collection of Letters, Familiar and Commercial’ (1783, 12mo); ‘Recueil choisi de traits historiques et de contes moraux’ (1785, 12mo; 5th edit. 1797); ‘Petite Encyclopédie des jeunes gens,’ dedicated to Lady Charlotte Cavendish Bentinck (1788, 12mo, numerous editions); and ‘La Liturgie Anglicane’ (1794, 12mo). Dr. Wanostrocht, who printed the letters LL.D. after his name, died at Camberwell, aged 63, on 19 Nov. 1812. His widow Sarah, who with the aid of her husband had issued ‘Le Livre des Enfans, ou Syllabaire Français’ (4th edit. 1808), died at Camberwell on 18 Oct. 1820 (Gent. Mag. 1812 ii. 593, 1820 ii. 380). The school at Alfred House was continued by the doctor's nephew and assistant, Vincent Wanostrocht (the father of the writer on cricket), who, besides revising his uncle's editions of Marmontel, Florian, Barthélemy, and other French classics, published ‘The British Constitution, or an Epitome of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England’ (London, 1823). He died at Alfred House, aged 43, on 25 Jan. 1824 (Gent. Mag. 1824, i. 188), leaving issue, besides Nicholas, Vincent (1813–1888), who displayed great talent as an inventor, but was unfortunate in his experiments; Sally, who married, in 1820, George Warden of Glasgow; and Mary, who married, in December 1822, Nathaniel Chater of Fleet Street. After Vincent's death the school was carried on by his eldest son, Nicholas, whose devotion to cricket is said to have been somewhat detrimental to the more strictly academic portion of the curriculum. He studied cricket at Camberwell under Harry Hampton, who had a ground there, and gradually developed into a very brilliant left-handed bat, his cut to the off from the shoulder being specially commended. His slow ‘lobs’ were also described as very fatal. He first appeared at Lord's as ‘N. Felix’ (a name which he always assumed at cricket, in deference, it is supposed, to the feelings of parents) on 23 Aug. 1828; but it was not until 1831 (24 July) that he first played for the gentlemen against the players, his scores being 0 bowled Pilch and bowled Lillywhite 1. He played again in this match in 1833, 1837, 1840, and, with a few exceptions, right down to 1851. In 1846 a match was played at Lord's ‘in his honour’ (1–3 June), at which the prince consort put in an appearance, but Felix's side was badly beaten by Pilch's eleven. On 18 June in the same year he was beaten by Alfred Mynn [q. v.] in a single-wicket match which attracted a large crowd of spectators; nor was he successful in the return match with Mynn at Bromley on 29 and 30 Sept. of the same year. In 1845 Felix published, in a thin quarto, his ‘Felix on the Bat; being a scientific Enquiry into the use of the Cricket Bat, together with the History and Use of the Catapulta’ (London, 2nd edit. 1850, and 3rd edit. 1855), which forms one of the classics of cricket, together with the ‘Cricketer's Guide’ of John Nyren [q. v.], and Denison's ‘Sketches of the Players.’ Each of the six chapters is adorned with a quaint coloured plate and a humorous tailpiece; both these and the emblematic frontispiece were engraved after the author's own drawings. The recommendations as to costume, ‘paddings’ (in view of ‘the uncertainty and irregularity of the present system of throwing bowling’), and other accessories are diverting, as is also the description of an engine, ‘the catapulta,’ which he devised as a substitute for a professional bowler. About 1830 he moved the school from Camberwell to Blackheath, where he was long a familiar figure from the zeal with which he instructed his pupils in the rudiments of the national game. He gave up his school about 1858, when a subscription was raised for him among cricketers and a considerable sum collected. In addition to the ‘catapulta,’ which soon fell into disuse, he invented the tubular indiarubber batting gloves, the patent for which he sold to Robert Dark of Lord's. He retired to Brighton, where he painted portraits and animals, and he died at Montpelier Road, Brighton, in 1876. His widow died in 1901.