Richard Vaughan (cricketer)

Richard Thomas Vaughan (28 May 1908 – 1 April 1966) was an English cricketer. Vaughan was a right-handed batsman who fielded as a wicket-keeper. The son of Thomas Hallowes Vaughan and Elsie Vaughan, he was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. He was educated at Repton School, where his house and headmaster was the future Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher.

Vaughan proceeded to Clare College, Cambridge, where he gained a Cambridge Blue in football for 3 consecutive years. He captained the University football team during this time. He made his first-class debut for Cambridge University against the Leicestershire in 1928. In this match, he was dismissed for 3 runs in the Cambridge first-innings by Ewart Astill. He wasn't required to bat in their second-innings. He played a second and final first-class match for the University in the same season, against Sussex. He was dismissed for a duck by Arthur Gilligan in the University first-innings. In their second-innings, he scored 13 runs before being dismissed by Maurice Tate.

He made his debut for Berkshire in the 1928 Minor Counties Championship against Wiltshire. He appeared in 3 further matches for Berkshire in 1930, the last coming against Oxfordshire. He later joined Wiltshire in 1937, appearing again for the county in 1939 and after World War II, playing Minor counties cricket for Wiltshire to 1951, making 16 appearances.

Outside of cricket, Vaughan worked for Shell in Ceylon during the early 1930s. Returning from Ceylon, he took up farming in 1935, buying Middle Farm in Winterbourne Monkton, Wiltshire. He married to Blanche Innes Dickson in 1937, with the couple having 3 children, with their daughter Sarah Merion Vaughan being bestowed an OBE during her life. He served in World War II with the Royal Army Service Corps, obtaining the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in 1940. He was later promoted to a full Lieutenant and later in March 1941 to a Temporary Captain. The Service Corp was later attached to the 18th Infantry Division, arriving in Singapore just 3 weeks before the Japanese invasion, which ended in a British surrender. He spent time following the surrender as a POW in the Changi Prison, before being sent to work on the Burma Railway, working there for 8 months. During his internment he came across his brother-in-law, John Austin Dickson, with the two of them helping each other through their captivity. His experiences during the war were rarely mentioned by him in later life.

Following the war, he resumed farming in Wiltshire. He also served as a J.P., and as Chairman of both the local branches of the National Farmers Union and Conservative Party. He gave up farming in 1963 following a series of heart attacks, later dying in Woodborough, Wiltshire on 1 April 1966. His wife died 41 years later in 2007.