fielding sides. In addition, as MCC captain of a team which toured India in 1926–27, he encouraged Indians to take responsibility for their own cricket board instead of allowing white Englishmen to run Indian cricket, and lobbied the MCC to bestow Test match status on the Indian team. As MCC president, he played a part in the D'Oliveira affair in 1968. He died in 1976, aged 81. Early life Gilligan was born in Denmark Hill, an area of Camberwell in London. He was the second of four children born to Willie Austin Gilligan and Alice Eliza Kimpton; his brothers Frank and Harold also played high-level cricket. The family had a strong connection with Sussex; Gilligan followed Sussex County Cricket Club as a child, and later played club cricket there. After attending Fairfield School, he was educated at Dulwich College from 1906 until 1914 where he established a sporting reputation in athletics and cricket. In the latter sport, he played in the school first eleven, as did his brothers; in 1913, all three boys played in the team. Gilligan played in the eleven between 1911 and 1914 and captained the side in his final two years. In 1914, he topped the school's batting and bowling averages. Selected to play representative schools cricket at Lord's Cricket Ground in 1914, he took ten wickets in total and scored one fifty in the two matches. By the standards of school cricket, his pace was impressive, and Surrey invited him to play for their second eleven during the school holidays of 1913 and 1914; his father was a member of that county's committee, and Gilligan qualified to play through his London birth. In 1914, Gilligan entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, but his life at the university was interrupted by the First World War. He fought in France with the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1915, serving as Captain in the 11th battalion. When the war ended, Gilligan returned to Pembroke and resumed his cricket career. Cricket at Cambridge Following the war, Cambridge University suffered from a lack of quality bowling at the start of the 1919 cricket season. Consequently, Gilligan faced little competition for his place in the team and took 32 wickets at an average of under 27 in Cambridge matches, which critics considered a poor return. He made a bigger impression when, batting at number eleven in the order, he scored 101 against Sussex and shared