You are in:
The remarkable career of William Gunn
A co-founder of Gunn & Moore, William ‘Billy' Gunn was one of Victorian England's great sportsmen and businessmen.
Before he started making cricket bats, Gunn was an exceptional athlete who became England's first professional sportsman to represent England at both cricket and football. Born in Nottingham in 1858, he played the bulk of his football for Notts County and all his county cricket for Nottinghamshire, where he became captain.
Probably the outstanding highlight of Gunn's cricket career was scoring 228 for a ‘Players' XI against Australia at Lords in 1890. Standing at 6' 2", Gunn was very tall for a batsman of real grace, and his speed and agility in the field was second to none.
Alongside Gunn's career on various sports fields, he also grew up in the sports retail trade, signing on as an apprentice with Nottingham's leading sports retailer Richard Daft at the age of 15. Gunn later became half of a partnership to open the Gunn & Moore sports shop in Nottingham. It was from here that he branched out into bat making in 1892. As a current England batsman at the time, Gunn was his own best marketing tool for Gunn & Moore bats.
