[1] Warner was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the youngest of 21 children.

[2] His mother, Rosa Cadiz, was a Spanish woman, and his father Charles Warner,[3] was from an English colonial family.

As a right-hand batsman, Warner played first-class cricket for Oxford University, Middlesex and England.

He was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1904 and also in 1921, making him one of two to have received the honour twice (the usual practice is that it is only won once: the other is Jack Hobbs).

He was cricket correspondent of the Morning Post from 1921 to 1933, and subsequently of the Daily Telegraph.

He married Agnes Charlotte Blyth in the summer of 1904[5] and had two sons, Esmond and John, and a daughter, Elizabeth.