Henry Dawes Swan (born 28 July 1879, Newcastle upon Tyne, died 21 December 1941, Bournemouth) was an English cricketer and cricket administrator.
Swan attended Uppingham School and Exeter College, Oxford.[1] He left Oxford without taking a degree, and worked for a time in the office of the shipping company Elder Dempster Lines in Bristol before working for a shipbuilding company in Wivenhoe in Essex.[2]
He was elected to the Essex County Cricket Club committee in 1906 and appointed chairman of the committee in 1913.[2] [3] In 1910 he managed a cricket team that toured Portugal.[4] He said in 1913 that he captained or managed about 60 teams in a season.[2]
He played in a variety of matches over many years for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC),[5] and was a member of the committee of the MCC.[3] He organised many of the MCC's matches and minor tours, including an annual tour in the Channel Islands.[6] According to one obituary he played more games for MCC "than anyone else ever has".[1]
He served as the New Zealand Cricket Council's representative in London, and visited New Zealand during the cricket season of 1921–22 helping to organise a tour by an MCC team to New Zealand in the 1922–23 season. When the touring team was announced he was named as its manager.[7] Before the tour Sir Home Gordon described Swan as "a man of colossal size, great enthusiasm, possessing fine knowledge of the game as well as a ready wit and imperturbable good temper. He should prove an outstanding [''sic''] successful feature of the tour."[4]
He played in the opening match of the tour, against Western Australia, making his first-class debut at the age of 43.[8] Batting at number eleven he was out for a duck in his only innings, and when he fielded his physique caused some amusement among the Perth crowd.[9] After that he limited his activities to his managerial duties, and played in only one more match on the tour, a minor match in Nelson.[5] However, he also played in the annual match between former students at British public schools and former Christ's College boys, held that year in Geraldine, South Canterbury.[10]
He returned to England after the tour to begin the organisation of the first New Zealand cricket tour to England, which it was hoped would occur in 1925.[11] It eventually took place in 1927. He continued to represent the New Zealand Cricket Council in London until the 1930s, and was at one stage suggested as a possible manager of the New Zealand team in England in 1931.[12] He was largely responsible for organising the itineraries of New Zealand's 1927 and 1931 tours.[13]