40 Facts About Leslie Hylton

Leslie George Hylton was a Jamaican cricketer, a right-arm bowler and useful lower-order batsman who played in six Test matches for the West Indies between 1935 and 1939.

Leslie Hylton performed well, as part of a trio of fast bowlers that included Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale, and helped to secure a West Indies victory in the four-match Test series.

Leslie Hylton was chosen again in 1939, for a three-Test tour of England, but was out of form and lost his place in the Test side.

In 1942 Leslie Hylton married Lurline Rose, the daughter of a police inspector.

When Leslie Hylton learned of this he confronted his wife, and after initial denials she confessed.

Leslie Hylton was born on 29 March 1905, in Kingston, Jamaica.

Leslie Hylton was brought up in difficult family circumstances, in the lower strata of Jamaican society, not knowing who his father was.

Leslie Hylton's mother died when he was three years old, and he was raised by his sister, who died when he was barely a teenager.

Leslie Hylton's education was intermittent and incomplete; on the death of his aunt, he left school and became an apprentice in a tailor's shop.

Leslie Hylton appears to have made little progress in this trade, and took up a variety of unskilled jobs before becoming a dock labourer.

Leslie Hylton developed as an all-rounder, a bowler who could vary speed with spin and who could perform usefully as a batsman.

Leslie Hylton failed to take a wicket as a bowler, but held two catches in the field.

Leslie Hylton kept his place for the second representative game, played at Melbourne Park, and made his mark as a bowler by taking 5 Tennyson XI wickets for 34 runs in the tourists' first innings, and 3 for 53 in their second.

When Tennyson brought another team to Jamaica early in 1928, Leslie Hylton played in all three representative matches, the first two of which were won by Jamaica, the third being drawn.

Leslie Hylton was not selected for the West Indies side that in early 1930 played a four-Test home series against a weak MCC side led by the Hon.

Close to his 30th birthday, Leslie Hylton was at last favoured by the selectors and chosen for the first Test match of the series, to be played at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados beginning on 8 January 1935.

Leslie Hylton performed well with both ball and bat; he took 3 wickets for 8 in England's first innings and was the West Indies' top scorer in the side's second innings.

Leslie Hylton kept his place in the side for the whole four-match series.

The third match, at Georgetown, British Guiana, was a rain-affected draw, although in the England first innings Leslie Hylton achieved his best Test bowling analysis: 13.2 overs, 4 maidens, 27 runs, 4 wickets.

In first-class cricket, Leslie Hylton played in three matches against a visiting Yorkshire side in 1936, in the third game excelling as a batsman by scoring 80, his highest first-class score.

Early in 1939 Leslie Hylton played well in two trial matches, designed to assist selection for that summer's tour of England.

The Board relented, and Leslie Hylton was belatedly added to the touring party.

Leslie Hylton was not selected for the last game of the three-match series.

On his arrival home, Leslie Hylton announced his retirement from representative cricket.

Lurline Leslie Hylton was ambitious, and wanted to be a fashion designer; this involved spending lengthy periods of time away from home, training in New York fashion schools.

In mid-April 1954 Leslie Hylton received from New York an unsigned letter, informing him that his wife was engaged in an adulterous relationship with one Roy Francis, by repute a notorious womaniser.

Greatly disturbed, Leslie Hylton consulted his family before sending Lurline a curt telegram demanding that she return home immediately.

Leslie Hylton's explanation was that he kept the gun for security purposes; there had been recent burglaries and other criminal activity in the area of the family home, and he was concerned that his ammunition supplies were running low.

Leslie Hylton himself called the police, who failed to caution him as he gave an incoherent, self-incriminatory account of the night's events before being taken into custody.

Leslie Hylton was represented by Vivian Blake, one of the island's most prominent counsel.

Blake was briefed by Leslie Hylton's solicitor, Noel Nethersole, who had been Jamaica's cricket captain in the 1930s and was a prominent West Indies Cricket Board member.

Leslie Hylton has given me joy what I have never known with you.

Since it was beyond contention that Leslie Hylton had fired the fatal shots, the only conceivable defence was that of provocation, that had driven him to an act of passion.

Leslie Hylton claimed that he reloaded intending to commit suicide, but this did not explain the number of wounds in his wife's body.

Leslie Hylton dismissed the significance of the failure to caution Hylton before the arrest, and allowed his confused and self-incriminating initial statements to stand as evidence.

Leslie Hylton's one remaining hope was that Jamaica's colonial governor, Sir Hugh Foot, would grant a reprieve, and a petition requesting clemency was arranged, supported by many of the colony's leading citizens.

Leslie Hylton appeared to accept his fate with a stoical dignity and calm.

Shortly before the execution he was visited in the death cell by his former playing colleague Stollmeyer, who described Leslie Hylton as dressed in a white gown and looking like a high priest.

Leslie Hylton was hanged, after refusing the traditional last breakfast, and his body buried within the prison compound.

Whitaker sums up Hylton's fate thus: "Leslie Hylton, in his treatment by cricket's hierarchy, and the unforgiving punishment for a crime of passion, was seen by many as a symbol of how hard, and perhaps how unfair, life could be for those born into the poverty of Jamaica's working class".