Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Gale, Frederick
GALE, FREDERICK (1823–1904), cricketer and writer on cricket under the pseudonym of 'The Old Buffer,' born at Woodborough, Pewseyvale, near Devizes, on 16 July 1823, was son of Thomas Hinxman Gale, rector of Woodborough and afterwards vicar of Godmersham, near Canterbury, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Poore of Andover. After attending Dr. Buckland's preparatory school at Laleham, Gale was from 1836 to 1841 at Winchester College, of which a great-uncle. Dr. W. S. Goddard [q. v.], was a former headmaster. While at Winchester he played in the cricket eleven against Eton and Harrow in 1841, and in 1845 he played once both for Kent and for the Gentlemen of Kent against the Gentlemen of England. He was a hard hitter and a good fieldsman, but after leaving Winchester gave little time to the practice of the game.
Articled to a member of the London firm of Messrs. Bircham & Co., solicitors, Gale long worked with them as parliamentary clerk, and afterwards as parliamentary agent on his own account. But, deeply interested in cricket and other games, he devoted much time to writing about them, and he gradually abandoned legal business for the work of an author and journalist. Usually employing the pseudonym of 'The Old Buffer,' he contributed to the 'Globe' and 'Punch,' to the 'Cornhill' and 'Baily's Magazine.' He lectured occasionally also and he wrote many books, the best known of which are 'Public School Matches and those we meet there' (1853), 'Ups and Downs of a Public School' (1859), 'Echoes from Old Cricket Fields' (1871); 'Memoir of the Hon. Robert Grimston' (1885); 'Modern English Sports: their use and abuse' (1885); 'The Game of Cricket' (with portrait of Gale) (1887); and 'Sports and Recreations' (1888). Through his brother-in-law, Arthur Severn, Gale became a close friend of Ruskin, to whom he dedicated his 'Modern English Sports.' Ruskin, who wrote a preface to the book, professed complete agreement with Gale's 'views of life, its duties and pleasures' (Ruskin's Works, ed. Cook & Wedderburn, Index vol.). From 1865 till 1882 Gale resided at Mitcham. Interesting himself in Surrey cricket, he helped to discover and bring out four Surrey professional cricketers of distinction—H. Jupp, Thomas and Richard Humphrey, and G. G. Jones. In later life Gale, after some years spent with a son in Canada, became in 1899 a brother of the Charterhouse, London. He died in the Charterhouse on 24 April 1904, and was buried beside his wife at Mitcham. Gale married in 1852 Claudia Fitzroy (d. 1874), daughter of Joseph Severn [q. v.]; two sons and four daughters survived her.
[Personal knowledge; private information; Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack, 1905; Hist. of Kent County Cricket, 1907.]