MAKEPEACE, Harry [1881-1952]

Only a dozen men have represented England at both cricket and football internationals. Two of this select group played for Everton in the same era, one being  Jack Sharp, the other Harry Makepeace.  Makepeace is the only man to have won both the FA Cup and Football League and also the cricket County Championship.

Joseph William Henry ‘Harry’  Makepeace was always referred to as a local player but in fact he was born in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire on 28th August 1881. His father John, a compositor, worked in Darlington in the 1890’s and then moved his family to Liverpool where they lived at 15 Woodville Terrace L6 (now demolished).

He played his first game for Everton in 1902 and stayed with the club for 17 years making 336 appearances and scoring 23 goals. He was in the team which in 1906 won the F.A. Cup for Everton for the first time and in the team which won the First Division title in season 1914-15. Everton came close to winning the double in 1914-15 but lost to Chelsea in the F.A. Cup semi-final, a result hugely influenced by the fact that Makepeace was injured after just ten minutes of the match and they played most of the match with ten men. He made four appearances for the England team as a wing-half between 1906 and 1912. The Liverpool Evening Express [24.3.1914] recorded that at a dinner at the Exchange Hotel Harry Makepeace was presented with a cheque for £500 (2022 purchasing power about £61,000) the proceeds from  a benefit staged jointly for him and fellow player Val Harris. This was apparently the second benefit Makepeace had received.

Alongside his 17 year career as a professional footballer, Makepeace was a professional cricketer with Lancashire for 24 years (1906-1930). After retiring as a player he gave Lancashire another 20 years service as a coach. On retirement he had played just 1 short of 500 first class matches, scoring 25,799 runs and taking 42 wickets. He played in 4 tests for England during the 1920-21 Ashes series in Australia. He scored 279 runs, including a century of 117.

During the First World War Makepeace served in the army and then the newly-formed Royal Air Force.

In 1906 he married Rhoda Gertrude Stacey, at the time he was living at 63 Bulwer Street L4 (now demolished). The couple lived for many years at 74 Sunbury Road L4 in Anfield, then moving to the Wirral, where he died on 19th December 1952, aged 71.


74 Sunbury Road L4

Makepeace and his wife lived here for most of the time during which he played for Everton.

Harry Makepeace (right) with Everton colleague Jack Sharp. Both men played as internationals in both football and cricket. In this picture they wear the red rose cap of Lancashire C.C.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

There are various sources of information about Harry Makepeace on the internet, the basics being found in the Wikipedia entry. The era in which he played is covered in the excellent book Football on Merseyside [Percy M Young 1963] which includes accounts of key matches in which Makepeace played. Statistics of his cricketing career are available at Wisden. There is some brief footage of Makepeace as the Everton trainer in a British Pathé clip from 1923.