Cornwell made his debut for Dorset in the 1947 Minor Counties Championship against Wiltshire.
[4] He made a single first-class match for the Free Foresters against Oxford University in 1949.
[5] In this match he was dismissed for a duck twice, by George Chesterton in the Free Foresters first-innings, and by future South Africa Test player Clive van Ryneveld in their second.
He took 3 wickets in the match, all coming in the Oxford University first-innings for the cost of 60 runs from 16 overs.
[6] He later worked as an advertising executive, including as creative director for a New York firm,[7] and lived in the Seattle metropolitan area at Lynnwood, Washington, United States, where he died.