incomplete; on the death of his aunt, he left school and became an apprentice in a tailor's shop. He appears to have made little progress in this trade, and took up a variety of unskilled jobs before becoming a dock labourer. Despite the handicap of his impoverished background, Hylton grew up to be strong and athletic, and acquired considerable skill and a local reputation as a cricketer. When and how he began to play is not recorded; in his book A History of West Indies Cricket, Michael Manley surmises that most impoverished Kingston youngsters learned the game using a coconut branch and a tennis ball. The cricket historian Mike Marqusee writes that, by the early 20th century, all social classes in the West Indies had taken up cricket, although clubs were typically stratified in a hierarchy of skin tones. By the 1920s even the more exclusive cricket clubs of the colonies had begun to accept into their numbers talented cricketers such as Hylton, from the lower orders of society. According to Manley, "it was becoming increasingly clear that the descendants of the former slaves showed remarkable aptitude for the game". It was the normal course of events that black, uncoached players such as Hylton should emerge as bowlers rather than batsmen. Cricketing career Early matches Hylton developed as an all-rounder, a bowler who could vary speed with spin and who could also perform usefully as a batsman. In the 1920s, opportunities for first-class cricket in Jamaica were limited, since its distance from the other West Indies cricketing colonies prevented its participation in inter-colonial tournaments. First-class opposition was provided from time to time by visiting teams from England. One such touring side arrived at the beginning of 1927, led by the former England Test captain Lionel Tennyson and containing several other English Test cricketers including Percy Fender and Ernest Tyldesley. The party's fixtures included three representative first-class matches against the Jamaica XI; Hylton, aged 21, had been noticed in local cricket, and was given a place in the Jamaican side for the first match, which began at the Sabina Park ground in Kingston on 19 February 1927. In the match, Hylton scored 32 and 7 in his two innings, being not out in each case. He failed to take a wicket as a bowler, but held two catches in the field. He kept his place for the second representative game, played