Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

was born there.’ 8 However, chance visit or not, Hubert and Ellen chose to live in Ilkeston for a number of years. In the middle of the nineteenth century Ilkeston was changing from a market town serving a largely agricultural area into an expanding industrial centre based on local deposits of coal, iron ore, limestone and clay. Hubert perhaps saw new opportunities in the town to make use of his legal knowledge. Whatever the reasons for the move to Ilkeston, soon after, on 21 May 1860, the Suggs’ first son, Walter, was born. Then, on 11 January 1862, the Suggs had their second son, Frank Howe, his second name the maiden name of his mother. Cricket was flourishing in this part of the Midlands at the time of the birth of the Sugg boys. The Ilkeston Cricket Club was founded as early as 1824 and it became one of the leading clubs in the area. Its standing was such that in 1851 and 1852, George Parr’s All-England Eleven met twenty-two of Ilkeston on the Ilkeston Recreation Ground, the visitors winning easily on each occasion. 9 According to Frank, his father was ‘a fair player’ who sometimes ‘assisted’ the Ilkeston club although we are not told in what capacity. 10 The Suggs’ house bordered the field of the local cricket club. The family would watch the cricket from their garden on a sunny day, the boys scurrying to retrieve any balls that were hit over the garden wall. It was at Ilkeston and at an early age that Walter and Frank first encountered the game of cricket. However, the Suggs did not reside in Ilkeston for very long. When Frank was aged about four, Hubert moved the family back to Sheffield. 11 Consequently, although Frank was born in Derbyshire, he was to spend his formative years, and as we shall see begin his sporting career, in Sheffield in the county of Yorkshire. A rapidly expanding town, renowned for its cutlery and tool-making trades, Sheffield was a leading centre for sport in the 1860s. As in the Ilkeston area, there was a large number of cricket Family Background and Early Days 13 8 Cricket , 23 April 1896. 9 These are the matches with scorecards on the CricketArchive database. There may have been others. In 1925 the club moved to the Rutland County Cricket Ground, so called because it was sited on land once owned by the Duke of Rutland and the club became known as the Ilkeston Rutland Cricket Club. Derbyshire played first-class matches on the ground from 1925 until 1994. 10 Sporting Chronicle , 25 July 1916. 11 Ibid . Frank says that the move was while he was a baby whereas a profile in Cricket 12 July 1888 (and a number of other sources) says that the move to Sheffield was when he was four years old. Since the second of two daughters who died in infancy in Ilkeston died in 1886 and a surviving daughter, Sarah Ellen, was born in Sheffield in 1867, the move to Sheffield seems very likely to have been between these dates when Frank would have been about four years old.