Charles Ross Lyall

For the British civil servant in India who was also an Arabic scholar, see Charles James Lyall.

Charles Ross Lyall (3 October 1880 – 4 June 1950) was a career soldier who played first-class cricket for Somerset in two matches in the 1911 season.^[1] He was born in Calcutta, India and died at Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Lyall was an officer in the British Indian Army from 1900 to 1933. He graduated from the Royal Military College in 1900 as a "Queen's India cadet" and placed on the unattached list as a second lieutenant.^[2] In 1901, he was moved from the unattached list to the Indian Staff Corps.^[3] In 1902 he was promoted to full lieutenant.^[4] The only cricket played by Lyall that is recorded from this period is a single non-first-class three-day match for the North-West Frontier Province against the Punjab cricket team in late 1903, in which Lyall played as a lower order batsman.^[5]

In 1909, Lyall was promoted to captain and attached to the 36th Sikhs regiment of the Indian army.^[6] In 1911, he appears to have been in England for some time during the cricket season: he played in one County Championship match against Yorkshire in May, scoring an unbeaten 21 in the first innings and 8 in the second.^[7] Two months later, he followed that with a second first-class match, this time against the touring Indian cricket team, in which he scored 15 and 11 not out.^[8] That was the extent of his first-class cricket and left him with the odd statistic of a batting average higher (at 27.50 runs per innings) than his highest score.

Lyall returned to the Indian army. In 1916, he was promoted temporarily from captin to major in the 36th Sikhs.^[9] In 1919, there is a report in the London Gazette of a temporary promotion from major to lieutenant-colonel for a period of six days in 1918, while he commanded a battalion of 151st Indian Infantry.^[10] In 1922, he is reported to have relinquished the rank of lieutenant-colonel at the end of a period of commanding a battalion within the 36th Sikhs.^[11] By 1928, he is a full lieutenant-colonel, and temporarily moves on to the unemployed list before being reappointed to the Indian Army in July.^[12] There was another similar temporary move into and then out of unemployed status in 1929.^[13] Finally he retired from the Indian Army in 1933 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.^[14]

References

1. ^ "Charles Lyall". www.cricketarchive.com. http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Players/3/3695/3695.html. Retrieved 2011-04-29. 
2. ^ London Gazette: no. 27155. p. 362. 1900-01-19.
3. ^ London Gazette: no. 27348. p. 5594. 1901-08-23.
4. ^ London Gazette: no. 27469. p. 5608. 1902-08-29.
5. ^ "Punjab v North-West Frontier Province". www.cricketarchive.com. 1903-12-28. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/135/135185.html. Retrieved 2011-04-30. 
6. ^ London Gazette: no. 28259. p. 4483. 1909-06-11.
7. ^ "Somerset v Yorkshire". www.cricketarchive.com. 1911-05-18. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/8/8383.html. Retrieved 2011-04-30. 
8. ^ "Somerset v Indians". www.cricketarchive.com. 1911-07-17. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/8/8505.html. Retrieved 2011-04-30. 
9. ^ London Gazette: no. 29687. p. 7497. 1916-07-28.
10. ^ London Gazette: no. 31501. p. 10237. 1919-08-12.
11. ^ London Gazette: no. 32729. p. 5284. 1922-07-14.
12. ^ London Gazette: no. 33417. p. 5774. 1928-08-31.
13. ^ London Gazette: no. 33536. p. 6036. 1929-09-20.
14. ^ London Gazette: no. 33939. p. 3207. 1933-05-12.

Persondata
Name	Lyall, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1880-10-03
Place of birth
Date of death	1950-06-04
Place of death