Louis Frewer, the long-serving Rhodes House librarian and one of Oxfordshire cricket's staunchest supporters, has died aged 99.

Mr Frewer was appointed superintendent of Rhodes House Library in 1938, a position he held for 30 years.

But to generations of local cricketers, he will be remembered as the secretary of Oxfordshire County Cricket Club for more than a quarter of a century.

He was also a talented writer, who wrote hundreds of articles on historic Oxford and eminent Oxonians and was the author of a Pictorial and Historical Guide to Oxford.

He was also the compiler of the World List of Historical Periodicals and Bibliographies and the British editor of the International Bibliography of Historical Sciences 1939-1990, while in 1949 he translated Frederic Masson's Napoleon at St Helena.

Mr Frewer was born in Oxford in 1906 and educated at Bedford House School. After briefly working at the Oxford Times, he joined the Bodleian Library as a junior assistant and went up to St Catherine's Society in 1924, where he was awarded First XI cricket colours after dismissing all 10 opponents in a college match.

By the time he retired through injury he had scored almost 13,000 runs and taken 1,200 wickets, mostly for South Oxford. In 1935, he batted with England's Sir Jack Hobbs as a partner in a stand of 50 in the North Oxford President's match.

Under his care, the Rhodes House library of Commonwealth and American history was greatly expanded. He completed 50 years service to the university, after being recalled from retirement and finishing work in 1971.

For 73 years he was married to Dorothy Poulter, who died in 2002, aged 96. Mr Frewer, a devout Catholic, is survived by his two sons Glyn and Ivor, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.