Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

The worry and acrimony that accompanied the last years of the Sugg business had taken their toll. During those years, Walter Sugg had been the rock on which his more tempestuous brother could lean. Walter and Frank were near neighbours and their relationship had always been close. Now Frank could no longer rely on Walter for support. With the collapse of the business, Walter moved back to Derbyshire, more precisely to Dore, then a village on the outskirts of Sheffield and soon to be incorporated into the city and therefore into Yorkshire. This enabled him to be closer to his own family and the son who was running HHB Sugg Ltd, as we have seen a separate business to Frank Sugg Ltd. For a while Walter had an advisory role with the company. Walter suffered poor health after his move to Dore. Indeed, he spent much of his final years confined to his bed. He died on 21 May 1933, his 73rd birthday. He was buried two days later in the family plot in Burngreave Cemetery in Sheffield after a funeral attended by family members, local dignitaries and representatives of local cricket clubs and organisations. A two-minutes silence was held before all matches in the Sugg Thursday League on 25 May 1933 as a mark of respect. Walter’s death was a great shock to Frank and hit him badly. But he did not attend Walter’s funeral. Frank was not in as good health as his acquaintances in Liverpool had supposed and he must have felt unable to face the journey to Sheffield and the emotion of the day. 112 Indeed, Frank died suddenly at his home on 29 May 1933, from heart failure, just eight days after his brother’s death and six days after Walter’s funeral. 113 He was 71 years old. As with Walter, Frank’s funeral was quickly arranged. It took place at St Luke’s church in Crosby, a couple of miles from his home at Waterloo, on 1 June 1933. Dating from 1853 and in the Gothic style characteristic of the time, St Luke’s seems a fitting place for the funeral of a leading cricketer of the late Victorian years. Among the mourners at the funeral were Frank’s son, Frank Reginald, his three daughters with their respective spouses (Mr and Mrs W.Morgan, Mr and Mrs Richard R.Tippin, and Mr and Mrs W.Neville), a sister (Mrs W.Chadwick), Walter’s son, Bert, and Bert’s A Sad End 121 112 A writer in The Cricketer referred to a conversation some three weeks before his death in a Liverpool to Southport train about Frank’s innings of 171 for Lancashire against Oxford University in 1890 when ‘he looked quite well’. 113 The death certificate gives the cause of death as ‘Aortic Incompetence’. Today a more precise cause of death would be expected.