Joseph Firth

This article is about the New Zealand teacher and cricketer. For the British Liberal politician, see Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth.

Joseph Firth

Personal information
Born	(1859-03-25)25 March 1859 Wellington, New Zealand
Died	Wellington
Height
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Left-arm fast-medium
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1880-81	Nelson
1882-83 to 1885-86	Wellington
Career statistics
Competition First-class Matches 6 Runs scored 199 Batting average 19.90 100s/50s 0/1 Top score 54 Balls bowled Wickets 32 Bowling average 8.06 5 wickets in innings 1 10 wickets in match 1 Best bowling 8/13 Catches/stumpings 10/0
Source: Cricinfo, 23 January 2015

Joseph "Pentland" Firth CMG (25 March 1859 – 13 April 1931) was a New Zealand educationalist and teacher. Known as The Boss, he was the headmaster of Wellington College from 1892 to 1920. He was born and died in Wellington.

Education and teaching career

Firth was a pupil at Nelson College from 1873 to 1875. He taught there as a pupil-teacher until 1881, when he went to Wellington College as a junior master. In 1886 he took up a post at Christ's College, Christchurch, and began studying for his BA at Canterbury College, Christchurch. He married in 1889, and was asked to become headmaster of Wellington College in 1892.

Among the boys at Wellington College he gained the nickname "Pentland" from his teaching about the troubles the Spanish Armada encountered around Pentland Firth in the north of Scotland. Thereafter he signed his name "J.P. Firth".

Sporting career

He was the representative from New Zealand on the International Olympic Committee from 1923 to 1927; his appointment by the IOC was delayed as he was quoted in a local newspaper that he was the delegate from New Zealand before he went (representatives are appointed by the IOC itself, not by the National Olympic committee).

Firth also played six first-class cricket matches between 1880 and 1886, five for Wellington and one for Nelson. By far the best performance of his career came for Wellington against Hawke's Bay in February 1884, when he ran through the second innings with figures of 8 for 13. Captaining Wellington against Nelson in March 1885, he opened both batting and bowling, taking 3 for 27 and 2 for 19 and making 20 and 54, the highest score in the match. In the second innings he and William Salmon put on 100 for the first wicket, the first century stand made by Wellington batsmen for any wicket.

External links

• Player profile: Joseph Firth from CricketArchive
• Joseph Firth at Cricinfo

Further reading

• Beasley, A. W. 'Firth, Joseph 1859 - 1931'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography [1]
• Insull, H. A. H. 'FIRTH, Joseph [Pentland], C.M.G.' Encyclopaedia of New Zealand [2]
• Joseph Firth, Wellington College, and the First World War [3]
• Elliott, James. Firth of Wellington, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1937

• Nelson College Old Boys' Register, 1856–2006, 6th edition
• Free Lance (Wellington), 30 December 1914, p. 19.