Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

do not know the date of Mr Binns’ ultimatum or the brothers’ immediate response to it. We do know that neither of them completed their articles and sat their professional examinations. But it was as non-qualified solicitors’ clerks that the brothers earned a living for some years. In the census of 1881 the occupation of Walter, then twenty years old, is given as solicitor’s clerk, and of Frank, then eighteen years, as solicitor’s clerk, out of employment on the day of the count. But in 1881 both were on the brink of breaking into top-level cricket. Walter had made his one appearance for Yorkshire in 1881 before reverting to play for the county of his birth, while in that year Frank, after successes in club cricket in Sheffield, was interesting the Yorkshire selectors. It was not to be long after these promising beginnings that the brothers were able to give up all thoughts of full-time employment in a lawyer’s office and look to making a living from their talents in sport. Yet the Sugg brothers did not turn their backs completely on the law. They were able to put their legal background to good use when later they set themselves up in business as sports outfitters. When the law impinged directly on its affairs, as in the matter of alleged infringements of patents or trademarks or in disputes over payments, it was usually Walter who took the lead in representing the firm. In one case where a supplier was suing for unpaid monies and Walter was appearing for the firm, the judge complimented him, ‘You appear to know as much about law as about cricket.’ When the judge declared in favour of the plaintiff, Walter Sugg commented: ‘Thank you, your honour, I have been on the losing side before.’ 17 Frank was also litigious by nature. In 1902 he brought an action for damages for slander against a Liverpool cotton trader, a Mr C.S.Robinson. According to Frank, he had agreed to invest £1,000 and his brother Walter £500 at the trader’s invitation but Mr Robinson claimed that the agreed transaction was in bales of cotton by weight, not in pounds sterling, and hence that the brothers’ obligations were for larger sums. It seems a basic matter on which to have a misunderstanding though Frank admitted he knew nothing about cotton trading. When the cotton market collapsed, the defendant claimed compensation from the Suggs and they rejected the claim. Mr Robinson then pursued Frank Sugg Family Background and Early Days 19 17 Liverpool Mercury , 13 October 1897.