Dudley Pontifex
Dudley David Pontifex was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Surrey [County Cricket Club|Surrey], Somerset County [Cricket Club|Somerset] and the Marylebone Cricket Club, plus other amateur sides, between 1878 and 1896. He was born at Weston, Bath, Somerset, and died at West Dulwich, London.
Pontifex was a right-handed middle-order or opening batsman. Educated in Bath, he appeared in a freshmen's trial match at Cambridge University but failed to make the first team; he did, however, win a Blue for billiards.
Appearing in minor cricket for amateur sides in Somerset and for Somerset County Cricket Club in non-first-class matches from 1877, Pontifex made his first-class cricket debut in 1878 against Oxford University for a Gentlemen of England side, and was successful neither in that nor in the South v North match that followed. After university, Pontifex moved to London to qualify as a lawyer and in 1881 he appeared fairly regularly in first-class matches for Surrey. In the match against Nottinghamshire at The Oval, he opened the batting and scored 89; this was his only score of more than 50 in first-class cricket. This was his only season of regular cricket. In 1882, he made a single first-class appearance in Somerset's debut season as a first-class team. He then played for MCC irregularly, and only very occasionally in first-class matches, over the next 14 seasons until his final first-class match in 1896.
His obituary in The Times in 1934 stated that after the age of 45 he took up golf and "became a scratch player"; he was also known as a real tennis and billiards player.