George Hirst

George Herbert Hirst (7 September 1871 – 10 May 1954) was a professional English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1891 and 1921, with a further appearance in 1929. He played in 24 Test matches for England between 1897 and 1909, touring Australia twice. One of the best all-rounders of his time, Hirst was a left arm medium-fast bowler and right-handed batsman. He completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in an English cricket season 14 times, the second most of any cricketer after his contemporary and team-mate Wilfred Rhodes. One of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year for 1901, Hirst scored 36,356 runs and took 2,742 wickets in first-class cricket. In Tests, he made 790 runs and captured 59 wickets.

Born in Kirkheaton, Hirst first achieved success for Yorkshire as a bowler who could bat a little. Over his first few seasons, his batting developed at the expense of his bowling until he was regarded mainly as a specialist batsman. Around 1900, his bowling re-emerged when he discovered a method to make the ball swing in the air after he released it. He was one of the first bowlers to control the swing of the ball; batsmen found it very difficult to counter this method and Hirst's bowling was subsequently far more successful. From 1903 he achieved 11 consecutive doubles. He set records in 1905, when he scored 341 runs in an innings against Leicestershire—still the highest total for Yorkshire as of 2015—and in 1906, when he completed an unprecedented and unrepeated double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets. In many seasons, he battled injury which reduced his effectiveness, but his bowling remained successful until shortly before the First World War. Hirst played in all England's home Test series between 1899 and 1909, but his record for England was less impressive than his record for Yorkshire and he may have suffered from playing in Australia where playing conditions did not suit him.

George Hirst (virologist)

George Keble Hirst, M.D. (March 2, 1909 – January 22, 1994) was an American virologist and science administrator who was among the first to study the molecular biology and genetics of animal viruses, especially influenza virus. He directed the Public Health Research Institute in New York City (1956–1981), and was also the founding editor-in-chief of Virology, the first English-language journal to focus on viruses. He is particularly known for inventing the hemagglutination assay, a simple method for quantifying viruses, and adapting it into the hemagglutination inhibition assay, which measures virus-specific antibodies in serum. He was the first to discover that viruses can contain enzymes, and the first to propose that virus genomes can consist of discontinuous segments. The New York Times described him as "a pioneer in molecular virology."

Education and career

Hirst was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA, but his family soon moved to Lewistown, Montana. He studied at Hobart College in Geneva, New York, and later at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, from which he gained his first degree and medical degree (1933). He worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City in 1936–1940, under the supervision of Homer Swift and Rebecca Lancefield, and then moved to the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division laboratories in 1940. There he combined research in collaboration with Frank Horsfall, Edwin D. Kilbourne and others with his army service, as a member of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board's Commission on Influenza.