John Sumner Gibson (25 November 1833 – 28 September 1892) was an English priest and first-class cricketer who played in one match for Cambridge University, the 1855 University match against Oxford.[1] He was born at Chester and died at Iridge Place, a listed country house near Hurst Green, East Sussex.[1]
Gibson was the eldest son of William Gibson (a priest; 1804–1862) and his first wife, Eliza Maria, who was the daughter of John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury; the reformer and churchman William Wilberforce was also a relation. After Eliza Maria died in 1836, William Gibson married her cousin, Louisiana, who was the daughter of Charles Sumner, Bishop of Winchester from 1827 to 1868.[2] Many of the 13 children produced by William Gibson's two marriages had "Sumner" as part of their collection of forenames, and some then hyphenated it with "Gibson" to produce a double-barrelled surname; John Sumner Gibson appears not to have done so and to have been known, in the family at least, as "Sumner Gibson" with "Sumner" as the preferred forename.[2]
Gibson was educated at Harrow School, where he played in the cricket team, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. His one recorded first-class cricket match was the University Match of 1855 when he batted low in the batting order, scoring 8 and 23, and did not bowl.[3]
Gibson was ordained as a Church of England priest and held various parish incumbencies in Kent, Warwickshire and Derbyshire up to 1873, when he appears to have retired to East Sussex.[4]