{{short description|English soldier and cricketer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2016}} {{Use British English|date=March 2016}} '''Eric Frank Penn''' (17 April 1878 – 18 October 1915) was an English soldier and a cricketer who played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) between 1898 and 1903.<ref name="ca">{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/32/32000/32000.html | title = Eric Penn | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 9 December 2014}}</ref> He was born at Westminster, London and died in the fighting of the First World War near Loos, France.
Eric Penn was the eldest son of William Penn, a cricketer and a businessman who ran the family engineering company of John Penn and Sons founded by his own father, John Penn, which was based in Greenwich, London. Eric Penn was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge.<ref name="venn">{{acad|id=PN897EF|name=Penn, Eric Frank}}</ref>
Penn played cricket as a right-handed middle-order batsman and a right-arm slow bowler while at school. At Cambridge, he played in a few first-team games in 1898 but did not consolidate his place in the side and was not picked for the University Match against Oxford University.<ref name="ca"/> In 1899, he played regularly as a lower-order batsman and bowler and in the match against the MCC he took five second-innings wickets for 47 runs, the best bowling performance of his first-class cricket career.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/5/5210.html | title = Scorecard: Cambridge University v Marylebone Cricket Club| date = 12 June 1899 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 12 December 2014}}</ref> He was awarded a Blue, though he took only one wicket in the 1899 University Match.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/5/5249.html | title = Scorecard: Oxford University v Cambridge University | date = 3 July 1899 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 12 December 2014}}</ref>
There was then a hiatus in Penn's university and cricket career, as he joined the 3rd (Militia) battalion of the Royal Scots as a lieutenant on 30 August 1899. The battalion was embodied in December 1899 to serve in the Second Boer War, and in early March 1900 left Queenstown on the ''SS Oriental'' for South Africa.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=The War - Embarcation of Troops|date=3 March 1900 |page=9 |issue=36080}}</ref><ref name="venn"/> He returned to both Cambridge and cricket for the 1902 season, when he had less success as a bowler but more as a batsman, scoring 51 not out in the match against Ireland, his only half-century.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/5/5919.html | title = Scorecard: Cambridge University v Ireland | date = 29 May 1902 | publisher = www.cricketarchive.com | accessdate = 12 December 2014}}</ref> He won a second Blue but again made little impact in the University Match.<ref name="ca"/>
Penn appears to have left Cambridge University without taking a degree.<ref name="venn"/> He played in only one further first-class cricket match – a single game for MCC ''against'' Cambridge University in 1903.<ref name="ca"/> From 1899 to 1906 he played Minor Counties cricket for Norfolk, where his father had bought Taverham Hall near Norwich.<ref name="ca"/>
On the outbreak of the First World War, Penn joined the Norfolk Yeomanry; he transferred to the 4th Battalion of the Grenadier Guards in April 1915 and was promoted to the rank of captain in September that year, a month before he was killed in the fighting of the Battle of Loos.<ref name="times">{{cite news| title = Fallen Officers | newspaper = The Times |issue = 40994 | page = 4 | location = London | date = 25 October 1915}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/cricketers-who-died-in-world-war-1-part-4-of-5-167609 |title=Cricketers who died in World War 1 — Part 4 of 5 |work=Cricket Country |accessdate=28 November 2018}}</ref>
In 1906, Penn married Gladys Eveleen Ebden, daughter of Charles Ebden of Baldslow Place near Hastings in East Sussex.<ref name="times"/> ==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Penn, Eric}} Category:1878 births Category:1915 deaths Category:English cricketers Category:Cambridge University cricketers Category:Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Norfolk Yeomanry officers Category:People educated at Eton College Category:Norfolk cricketers Category:A. J. Webbe's XI cricketers Category:British Army personnel of World War I Category:British military personnel killed in World War I Category:Grenadier Guards officers Category:Military personnel from Westminster Category:Territorial Force officers