Edwin Leat

Edwin John Leat (24 April 1885 – 8 June 1918) played first-class cricket for Somerset in two matches, one each in 1908 and 1910.^[1] He was born at Wellington, Somerset and died in the fighting of the First World War near Beaumont Hamel in France.

In his two first-class matches, Leat batted in the lower order and did not bowl. He scored just 18 runs in three innings, with a highest of 11 in the match against Kent in 1908.^[2] He played with some success as a middle-order batsman for Buckinghamshire in Minor Counties cricket between 1908 and 1911. It is not known whether he batted right- or left-handed, and he bowled a little for Buckinghamshire, but the bowling style is also unknown.

Leat was a second lieutenant in the Dorsetshire Regiment when he was killed in the fighting on the Somme in 1918; he is commemorated at the Pozières memorial.^[3] At the time of his death, his widowed mother was living in Ottery St Mary, Devon and he left a wife, Winifred Emily, who lived at an address in Slough, then in Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire).

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