Frederick Whymper (cricketer)

Frederick Hayes Whymper (14 October 1827 – 24 February 1893) was an English civil servant and a cricketer who played in eight first-class cricket matches for Cambridge University and other amateur sides between 1849 and 1852.^[1][2] He was born at Westminster and died at Chelsea, both in London.

Whymper was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge.^[3] He played cricket as a middle- or lower-order batsman at Eton and appeared twice in the annual Eton v Harrow cricket match.^[1] At Cambridge, he played several times for the university side in 1849 without ever making much impact, sometimes batting as low as No 11; despite an unimpressive record, he was picked for the 1849 University Match against Oxford University, when he made 7 and 5 in his two innings.^[4] After 1849, he played only single first-class matches in each of the next three seasons.^[1] While at Cambridge, Whymper was also reported to have been involved in the formulation of the Cambridge rules of 1848 for football.

Whymper graduated from Cambridge University in 1851 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, being placed third in the Classics Tripos list for his year; earlier, he had been awarded the Craven Scholarship.^[3] He was admitted as a lawyer at Lincoln's Inn in 1851, but then pursued a career as a factory inspector, responsible for the enforcement of workplace safety and employment law under the various Factories Acts.^[3] He was Superintending Inspector first at Bristol, covering the south-west of England, and then for Ireland, before succeeding as the Chief Inspector of Factories in 1891.^[5]