Revealed: Cricket umpire Dickie Bird left nearly £4million in his will to charity and extended family after passing away aged 92 with no children

Published: 14:22, 28 July 2026 | Updated: 14:28, 28 July 2026 Legendary cricket umpire Dickie Bird, who died aged 92 last September, left nearly £4million in his will, the Daily Mail can reveal. Probate records released today disclose that Bird, who never married and had no children, left the bulk of his estate in trust for members of his extended family and charity. Bird became cricket's most loved and widely respected umpire during a career which saw him officiate in 66 Test matches between 1973 and 1996 – at the time a world record – and 69 one-day internationals, including three World Cup finals. He had earlier played first-class cricket for Yorkshire and Leicestershire as a right-handed batsman, but only scored two centuries in 93 appearances before a knee injury forced him to retire aged 31. Bird, who was famed for his high standards as an umpire and also for his humour and eccentricity, was famously known as Dickie by everyone except his sister Marjorie Wyatt who called him by his real name: Dennis. Probate records disclose that he left an estate worth £3,940,504 in the UK, reduced after liabilities to £3,900,473. His will, drawn up on January 29, 2024 and witnessed by two solicitors, instructed his trustees to distribute his personal property – known as his chattels – in accordance with any instructions he gave before his death. The rest of his estate, after payment of legal and funeral expenses, was left for his trustees to distribute between his sister Marjorie, his niece Rachel Wyatt and any of her children, Graham Varger and any of his children, and charity or charities. Cricket umpire Harold Dennis 'Dickie' Bird left almost £4million in his will after his death aged 92, the Daily Mail can reveal Bird never married and had no children. He became one of cricket's most loved umpires with his eccentric style Bird, of Staincross near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was described by Ian Botham as 'a great bloke and completely bonkers' with umpiring skills which were 'the best and fairest of them all'. His eccentricity was illustrated by one incident when the Hampshire captain Richard Gilliat hit the ball high into the air, only for Bird to run from his position behind the stumps and try to catch it at the boundary's edge. He later explained: 'I had momentarily forgotten that I was no longer a player but an umpire.' Bird was often neurotic about being late and often arrived hours in advance of a match. He memorably once turned up at the Oval at 6am for a match in 1970, and was apprehended by a policeman while climbing into the ground. He arrived four hours early at Buckingham Palace in 1986 for a ceremony when he was appointed an MBE, and was three-and-a-half hours early after Sir John Major invited him to Chequers. Bird's autobiography, published in 1997, became one of the most successful books in the history of British sports publishing, selling more than a million copies. His sequel, called White Cap and Bails, was also a bestseller after being published two years later. His publishing success helped him to fund a new players' balcony at Yorkshire's Headingley ground with a £125,000 donation in 2015, after he replaced Sir Geoffrey Boycott as the club's president. An auction of his cricketing memorabilia, including his awards, medals, ties and hats, made more than £50,000 earlier this month. Bird received both an OBE and MBE, claiming to have met the late Queen Elizabeth dozens of times Bird was born in Barnsley on April 19, 1933, and was brought up to be a games fanatic by his father who worked for 52 years as a miner. He often recalled that his father warned him of the dangers of smoking and drinking, telling him: 'If you want to be a successful sportsman, keep clear of women in nightclubs.' Bird was inevitably nicknamed Dickie while a pupil at Raley School in Barnsley, where he was captain of cricket and football, and the name stuck with him for the rest of his life. He initially showed more promise at football and was briefly a youth player with Barnsley FC before a knee injury and an unsuccessful cartilage operation led to him concentrating on cricket. Bird was soon opening the batting for Barnsley with broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson, and on one occasion they put on 200 runs together, with Sir Michael scoring a century and Bird making 92 not out. His acute nerves led to him being the butt of practical jokes which included an incident when his team-mates tied his left and right pads together so that he fell down when he walked out to bat. Bird signed for Yorkshire at the age of 19 but totalled only 405 runs in the three seasons from 1953 to 1955, an average of 18.40. Mourners gathered at St Mary's Church in Bird's hometown of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, for his funeral in October last year The umpire and ex-professional player was honoured with a bronze statue in Barnsley - featuring his famous 'out' signal - which he visited with then-Prince Charles in 2012 He made his County Championship debut in 1958 but was never able to command a regular place in the powerful Yorkshire team of that era despite a moment of glory in 1959 when he made 181 not out against Glamorgan. Bird joined Leicestershire in 1960 but was never really happy with his new county although he scored 1,000 runs in his first season. His reputation as an eccentric developed when he slipped at the boundary while chasing a ball and got his head stuck between the pavilion railings. He needed a joiner to free him. Bird retired from county cricket in 1964 aged only 31 after 93 first-class matches and scoring 3,315 runs at an average of 20.72. He coached at Plymouth College for the next three seasons, while scoring prolifically for Paignton Cricket Club. Bird received his advanced coaching certificate in 1966 and taught cricket in South Africa during five English winters, becoming one of the first coaches to go to Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg. He loved South Africa and was said to have taken up with a local girl who was 'beautiful - blonde, tall and very well-educated', and even liked cricket. But the relationship fizzled out, leaving Bird to recall in later life: 'The fact is, I'm married to cricket.' Yorkshire and Durham held a minute's applause for Bird before their County Championship tie at Headingley in September last year Fans left cricket balls among the floral tributes to the beloved umpire by his statue in Barnsley after his death Bird applied to Lord's in 1969 to be put on the first-class umpires list and stood in his first county match the next year. Friends had feared he would be too nervous to make a good umpire but he immediately showed a penchant for it. When he was barracked by a spectator in his first Test, he took off his umpire's jacket and offered it to his critic. Bird made a world tour in 1980, lecturing and appearing on radio and television, and in 1982 he umpired the Women's World Cup final in New Zealand. He always happily posed for photographers, once with a camel, but also with peacocks which were keeping him awake, a cockatoo in Australia, and dressed in a turban and flowing robes prior to a visit to the UAE. Bird was an ardent royalist and especially devoted to the late Queen Elizabeth. He noted after he had flown back from New Zealand for a reception at Buckingham Palace in 1997 that it was 'the 27th time that we had met'. A statue of Bird was erected in Barnsley in 2009 and a plinth later had to be installed to stop women hanging underwear on his extended finger. He went on to be awarded an OBE by then-Prince Charles in 2012 for his sporting career and his charity work, establishing his Dickie Bird Foundation to help under-privileged youngsters.  He suffered a serious stroke in 2009 but made a good recovery, especially after being appointed President of Yorkshire CCC for 2014-15. In both of those years the county won the Championship.