William Priest

Priest was born at Dunedin in 1909.[1] He was educated at Musselburgh and at Otago Boys' High School where he played a variety of sports.[3][4][5][6] He captained the Otago schools representative cricket side whilst at school, playing alongside Vern Leader, Don Cameron and Vic Cavenagh, all of whom went on to play for Otago in representative cricket.[7]

After leaving school Priest went up to the University of Otago in Dunedin. He graduated with a medical degree in 1934, initially working at Dunedin Hospital.[8][9] Whilst he was a student Priest enlisted in the Otago Regiment[lower-alpha 1] and was appointed as a second lieutenant with the Otago University Medical Company in 1932;[10] during World War II he volunteered for overseas service[11] and served with the Royal New Zealand Air Force.[12]

With a good reputation as a school cricketer, Priest played club cricket for Carisbrook Cricket Club in Dunedin. He was a batsman who immediately made a "good impression" with the side in 1929.[13] The Evening Star described him as "a most promising young batsman", saying that "he kept the ball down, punished the loose stuff, and made a good job of any ball that asked to be driven to the off boundary",[14] whilst the Otago Daily Times reported that his "driving and square cutting were always well timed" and predicted that he would become a "very valuable" member of the side.[13] Later in the same year the paper described him as a "stylish batsman", albeit one who had made a run of scores all in the 30s.[15]

By the start of the 1931–32 season he had moved from Carisbrook to play for the Dunedin University side, playing in its first season in the senior competition,[16][17] by which time The Star, a Christchurch newspaper, was describing him as a "well-known" cricketer[18] with "sound batting knowledge" who had "for so long been a consistent batsman".[19] In December, after showing "good form", he was selected for the Otago squad for the Plunket Shield matches against Canterbury and Auckland.[20] The Star described him as "a solid and consistent batsman who has shown improved form since he went from Carisbrook to the University eleven. Last season he put together some useful scores for Carisbrook, and this season has scored 161 runs with an average of 40.25. He has a good range of scoring shots, being especially strong on the off-drive", although the paper thought that he may be the Otago twelfth man for the Shield match against Canterbury.[16]

After initially working at the Dunedin Hospital, in 1934 Priest was appointed to work at New Plymouth Hospital, leaving Otago at Christmas.[12][35][44] He remained at New Plymouth for two years and later worked for a year at Cashmere Sanatorium near Christchurch, before moving to Central Otago to work in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients at Waipiata which had been opened in 1923.[6][12][45] After serving during World War II in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, he was appointed to Wanganui hospital as a chest specialist, initially serving as the tuberculosis officer at the hospital.[12]

In 1951 Priest became the first New Zealander to be awarded the Wunderly Travelling Scholarship by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.[46] The scholarship was established by Harry Wyatt Wunderly to enable doctors from Australia and New Zealand to study thoracic diseases.[47][48] Priest was afforded a year's leave of absence to take up the scholarship, travelling to study how tuberculosis was treated in Britain and Scandanvia.[46][49] Afterwards he returned to work at Wanganui, remaining at the hospital until his death in 1972.[43]

Priest married Ethna Roberts at Whakatāne in April 1939.[50] The couple had four sons, one of whom died in infancy.[43][51] Their other three sons all played cricket; one, David, for Wanganui and Wairarapa in the Hawke Cup.[2][52] Priest died at Wanganui in 1972, aged 63, and is buried at Aramoho Cemetery;[1] an obituary appeared in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 1973.[53] His wife lived until 2002.[51]

• William Priest at ESPNcricinfo