Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

impersonator who took on the personas of both Emile Zola and Captain Dreyfus, and the actress and singer Millie Hylton, who was also an impersonator. She was best known for her impersonations of ‘giddy young men addicted to the practice of painting the town red’. Not surprisingly, with players from England and Australia in the audience, the theatre was packed to the rafters despite the counter-attractions of several other Leeds’ theatres, including the Grand Theatre, the Theatre Royal, the New Queen’s Theatre and the Tivoli Theatre of Varieties, all of whom were vying for patronage that evening. Seats in the Grand Circle at the Empire Palace and many of the stage boxes were set aside for the two teams and their guests. The cricketers began to arrive at about nine o’clock and many of them were given an enthusiastic greeting by the audience. But at about 10.15pm the mood was to change dramatically when Briggs, who was in the front row and had been chatting to a member of the Australian team, suddenly threw up his arms and collapsed. He was carried unconscious into the foyer and was later taken by taxi to the home of a Mr Bagshaw, one of the vice-presidents of the Leeds Cricket Club. Few in the theatre knew what was going on and the performance continued. By now, though, Briggs was being attended to by a Dr Iredale who decided, understandably, that Briggs could take no further part in the match. Iredale stayed with Briggs throughout the night, during which time he was reported to have suffered several more seizures, and wired Mrs Briggs about the serious condition of her husband. The next day Briggs was taken by train across the Pennines to Exchange Station in Manchester where he was met by a representative of Cheadle Lunatic Asylum in Heald Green, Cheshire. Clearly disorientated, all Briggs could manage to say was: ‘Tell the public I am all right.’ Cheadle asylum was built between 1847 and 1849 as ‘a private asylum for the middle and upper classes’. It stood on a site which was part of Finney Farm on Long Lane and from the outside it looked like a large Victorian mansion. Author Joseph Connolly, in his book, ‘The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Constraint’, had earlier described the asylum, set in open countryside about eight miles from the centre of Manchester, as ‘a building with spacious grounds opening on to gardens and windows commanding agreeable views’. 80 Seizure at the Music Hall