Michael Harbottle

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Michael Harbottle
Personal information
Full name
Michael Neale Harbottle
Born(1917-02-07)7 February 1917
Slow left-arm orthodox
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1938Army
1936–1956Dorset
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 1
Runs scored 156
Batting average 156.00
100s/50s 1/0
Top score 156
Balls bowled 24
Wickets 0
Bowling average –
5 wickets in innings –
10 wickets in match –
Best bowling –
Catches/stumpings 0/–
Source: Cricinfo, 2 June 2011

Brigadier Michael Neale Harbottle, OBE (7 February 1917 – 30 April 1997) was a senior British Army officer who was chief of staff of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus from 1966 to 1968, a peace campaigner and amateur cricketer.

Early life

Harbottle was born in

bunions[1] but he was accepted by the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he studied from 1935 to 1937. He was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in August 1937.[2]

Cricket career

Harbottle was a left-handed

slow left-arm orthodox.[3] He was a talented player at Marlborough, and captained the Sandhurst XI.[1]

He played a

Minor counties level from 1937 to 1956, although infrequently due to his military commitments. He played cricket for the army until 1959 and captained the team in that year.[6]

He is the only English cricketer to score a century in his only first-class innings.[7]

Military career

Harbottle served in

UN Secretary General U Thant requested that Harbottle remain as chief of staff of the UN Force in Cyprus; however, the Ministry of Defence
declined to support his continuation in the role. He retired from the army in 1968.

He became chief security officer for a British-owned mining subsidiary of the

Consolidated African Selection Trust in Sierra Leone
. He wrote a book in 1976 titled The Knaves of Diamonds in which he provided his account of events in Sierra Leone during his time there.

Peace campaigner

Harbottle was vice president of the

United Nations Association UK from 1974, and general secretary of the World Disarmament Campaign from 1980 to 1982. Harbottle took part in setting up Generals (Retired) for Peace and Disarmament in 1981. In 1983, he and his wife Eirwen Harbottle set up the Centre for International Peacebuilding. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 led to Harbottle becoming the coordinator for the Worldwide Consultative Association of Retired Generals and Admirals from 1991. Harbottle was the author and coauthor of a number of books on the United Nations, Peacekeeping and Disarmament. He lived in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
. He was appointed OBE in 1959.

Harbottle married Alison Humfress in 1940, with whom he was to have one son and one daughter. He married Eirwen Simonds in 1972.

He died on 30 April 1997. A memorial service was held at St James's Church, Piccadilly, London, on 8 July 1997. The memorial address was given by Major-General James Lunt CBE.

Publications

  • The Impartial Soldier, London ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1970
    ISBN 0192149830
  • The Blue Berets, London : Leo Cooper, 1971
    ISBN 0850520789

References

  1. ^ a b Wisden 1998, p. 1432.
  2. ^ "No. 34430". The London Gazette. 27 August 1937. p. 5443.
  3. ^ "Player profile: Michael Harbottle". CricketArchive. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  4. ^ "First-Class Matches played by Michael Harbottle". CricketArchive. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  5. ^ "Army v Oxford University, 1938". CricketArchive. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  6. ^ "Minor Counties Championship Matches played by Michael Harbottle". CricketArchive. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  7. ^ Keith Walmsley, Brief Candles, ACS Publications, Cardiff, 2012, p. 63.
  8. ^ McKinlay, Robert A. (1991). "From Harvard to Bradford". In Woodhouse, Tom (ed.). Peacemaking in a Troubled World. Berg. p. 66.
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