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Over four afternoons in 1899, AEJ Collins became a name that would go down in cricket folklore as he broke the record for the highest recorded score in a single innings. As the innings and the story grew so did the coverage – with the national press following the 14-year-old's progress, plus the legendary WG Grace made an appearance.

However, in the following years Collins became frustrated by the fame and the pressures it brought. The impressionable pupil heard stories of the Boer War and another former Clifton boy Haig. With these stories Collins turned his back on a sporting career and enlisted in the army.

He trained with the Royal Engineers and toured India. But his army career dented his sporting prospects with him only making one appearance at the home cricket.

In 1914, Collins joined his division for World War One and he left for Ypres, leaving his new bride behind.

Early on the 11 November 1914, the Prussian guard had broken through the British front line. Vicious fighting, often at close quarters, continued throughout the morning as the British mounted an improvised counter-attack. At about half past midday, when the outcome of the battle was still in the balance, Lieut. Collins was shot and mortally wounded.

Under withering machine gunfire, sappers Farnfield and Matthews brought Lieut. Collins back into their trench, where he died an hour later.

Lieut. Collins was buried the next day close to where he fell. However, like countless others, his grave was obliterated in the subsequent battles of Ypres.

If the counter attack involving Collins and his makeshift team of sappers, stragglers and cooks had not worked, the German elite brigade would have broken through into the British rear. Who knows how that may have influenced different outcomes in the war.

The efforts of Collins and his men were not in vain. They not only held, but broke the attack of the elite Prussian Guards Brigade.

Location: Clifton College, Bristol BS8 3JH
Image shows AE Collins
Photograph courtesy of Clifton College Archives
Presented by John Inverdale

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