Ernest Simpson (cricketer)

[1][2] The family lived at Beckenham in Kent,[3] and Simpson's father worked at the London Stock Exchange, a profession which both boys later took up.

Simpson was educated at boarding school at Littlehampton before moving to Malvern College in 1891, aged 15, where he played association football and, for three years, cricket.

[4] He captained the college cricket team―a side which Wisden described as "thoroughly useful team"[5]―in his final year at school, succeeding Cuthbert Burnup in the role.

[7] He made his first-class debut for Kent County Cricket Club in the side's first match of the 1896 season, playing against Gloucestershire at Gravesend.

Burnup made his Kent debut in the same match and Simpson played alongside Charles Cooper who went on to marry one of his sisters in 1905.

With the reductions in the age limit and the likelihood of the introduction of conscription during 1915, Simpson enlisted under the Derby Scheme in December 1915 just before his 40th birthday.