Clarence Creasey played for Cardiff CC during the early 1900s, during which time the Principal of the city’s technical school also appeared for the Gentlemen of Glamorgan against the Players of Glamorgan in their annual match at Cardiff Arms Park on 3 August 1904. Batting at number ten, he made an unbeaten 9 in the drawn contest, but Clarence achieved so much more during his extraordinary life which culminated during the 1930s in the award of an OBE for his services to education.
Born in the Salford district of Manchester on 31st January 1874, Clarence was the eldest son of Edward and Hannah Creasey. His father was a draper who subsequently moved to premises in Matlock in Derbyshire and later Somerby in Lincolnshire. As a schoolboy, Clarence shone at science and mathematics and secured a place at The Royal College of Science in South Kensington (which later became part of Imperial College, London). He subsequently became a teacher of chemistry and physics and rose to the position of Principle of Wellingborough Technical Institute.
As a young man, he had played cricket for a number of teams in Eastern England, including Grantham YMCA, Willoughby Park and Lincoln Lindum, with his move to Northamptonshire seeing Clarence join Kettering. In 1902 he and his wife Nell who he had married in Braintree in Essex during March 1899, were on the move again, living at first in Cardiff where their sons Francis and Leslie were born, before moving to Plymouth in South Devon and subsequently Birkenhead in Cheshire. By this time, Clarence had become a HM Inspector of Schools besides the author of a number of books, writing under the pseudonym of Edward Cressy a series of volumes relating to the teaching of mechanical engineering and science in general.
In 1929 Clarence retired from the HM Inspectorate and moved with Ellen and their family to the village of Llangerniew in Denbighshire. For many years Clarence had been a close friend of HG Wells, another alumnus from The Royal College, and he collaborated with the famous writer on popular science and culture in the compilation of several books. In 1932 he turned down the offer from the famous son of a Kent cricketer to assist in the writing of “Work, Health and Happiness of Mankind”, as he preferred instead to focus his efforts on creating a wooded garden, with waterfalls, on the site of an abandoned slate quarry in Llangerniew, having been inspired by seeing something similar at Bodnant Gardens.
In 1935 Clarence was awarded an OBE for services to education and the teaching of science. He also maintained his interest in cricket by becoming a member of the Vale of Clwyd club and, as a keen horticulturalist, he helped them improve their facilities by overseeing the planting of several trees at their ground in Denbigh. Clarence also celebrated the Coronation of King George VI in 1937 by overseeing the planting of a series of trees in Llangerniew.
Clarence, who was a diabetic, had to have his left leg amputated during 1942 but, despite his reduced mobility, he continued to put his time to good effect in the gardens in the village, besides writing a biography of John Tyndall, the eminent Victorian scientist.
CREASEY, Clarence Hamilton, OBE
Born: Salford, Manchester, 31 January 1874
Died: Llangerniew, Denbighshire, 22 May 1947