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ARTHUR FORMAN - REPTON'S RAY OF SUNSHINE

One of our popular features at You and Yesterday is the Grave Matters series which looks at gravestones and memorials connected to Derbyshire personalities. Here Peter Seddon pays tribute to Arthur Forman, a Derbyshire cricketer and revered Repton schoolmaster who is buried at St. Wystan's in Repton.

The Repton School staff of 1877. The Reverend Arthur Forman is fourth left on the back row

The gravestone of Arthur Forman (1850-1905) at St. Wystan's in Repton

The memorial plaque to Arthur Forman inside St. Wystan's Church in Repton

It is not unusual for cricketing enthusiasts who visit Repton to seek out the grave in St. Wystan's church yard of the celebrated England test player C. B. Fry.

Yet how many realise that adjacent Fry's modest tablet is a much bigger gravestone which marks the final resting place of another less illustrious cricketer?

He is the Derbyshire player the Reverend Arthur Francis Emilius Forman, who when a master at Repton School, tutored the young Charles Fry both in the classroom and on the sports field.

Arthur Francis Emilius Forman was born in Gibraltar on 26 July 1850.

His career as a Derbyshire cricketer was a modest one. Between 1877 and 1882 he played just 5 first-class games. A right-hand batsman, he had seven innings, making a top score of 36 and averaging 12.85.

As a right-arm bowler he was given just two overs - one was a maiden, and off the other 3 runs were scored. He took no wickets.

Yet cricketing buffs visiting the church yard in Repton might like to know that Forman was part of a small piece of Derbyshire history - although alas not one to be proud of.

It concerned Derbyshire's game against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge which commenced on 10 July 1879. After Nottinghamshire posted a respectable first innings total of 159, Derbyshire came out to bat with reasonable confidence.

That confidence proved misplaced, for seven Derbyshire batsmen - including A. F. E. Forman - returned to the pavilion with a 'duck' against their names. Derbyshire were all out for 16 runs, a paltry total which remains their lowest in a first-class game.

Derbyshire failed to recover sufficiently in the second innings. After being required to follow on, they scored only 44, and the match which had been scheduled for three days finished after two.

Arthur Forman garnered a rather better reputation as a teacher. He was a master at Repton School from 1874 - when he was a young man of 24 - until his premature death in 1905 at the age of only 54.

One of his former pupils wrote of him:

'He was the most prominent member of the staff and first Housemaster of The Cross. Big, black-whiskered, dynamic, a kind of scholastic Barnabas, a jovial son of consolation, with a vast substantial smile. He was most popular in school and village alike, and in his memory the parishioners erected the Lychgate on which his name is recorded.

He was a man of enormous energy, and great powers of organisation, and had a remarkable skill of arousing enthusiasm in others. He was a gifted player at cricket, football and fives, and coached a long line of cricketers including the brothers Palairet and C. B. Fry.

He also used to coach Fry at long jump on the Paddock, placing his overcoat on a chair and getting Fry to jump over it in order to gain the height so important in a good long jumper.

It was Forman who began the Old Reptonian Cricket Week at Repton, and for some years he captained the Old Reptonian side in their annual tour.

In the classroom he had an air of authority which inspired respect, and his treatment of unruly boys was certainly unusual. He made the punishment fit the crime - so a youth caught eating in class would be sent out to buy a loaf, and for the remainder of the hour had to munch bread. If weather permitted, instead of being given 'lines', a boy was sent into the garden to gather fruit.

Arthur Forman was the principal Editor of the school's Terminal letter from its inception in 1885, and also first Secretary of the Old Reptonian Society. Shortly before his death he was appointed school bursar.'

Forman had married Eleanor Pears - the youngest daughter of Dr. Pears, headmaster at Repton from 1854 to 1874 - and when Forman died she was left a widow with a large family of young children.

Forman's grave in St. Wystan's church yard, although more lavish than C. B. Fry's, is still a modest one. A more fulsome tribute to his life is paid by a plaque inside the church itself, on which it is recorded that 'he linked together the school and the parish by the sunshine of his presence and the readiness of his service.'

                                              R. I. P. Arthur Francis Emilius Forman - 1850 - 1905                 
                

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County:  Derbyshire

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