Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

98 the London Gazette in March 1913. The bankruptcy adjudication, to which Frank Mitchell consented, was made at the Bankruptcy Court in Carey Street, behind the Royal Courts of Justice, in April 1913. The only cash asset that Mitchell had was £2 10s. He owned no property in London or South Africa and was, it would seem, dependent on the financial support of his wife or her family. She, with the then two young children of the marriage, was living with him in London, having travelled from South Africa at the start of the 1912 South African tour. His address once the tour ended was 103 Jermyn Street, a small block of flats (now demolished) behind the church of St James’s Piccadilly. In 1913 his residential address became 19 Langham Place, now near to the BBC buildings. As was required by the Bankruptcy Acts, there had to be a Public Examination, which took place in June 1913. Only now was there a reporting of his position in the papers. At that examination Frank Mitchell stated that, in April 1912, following a falling off in his business on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, he had closed that business and in coming to England as captain of the South African team, he retained hope (unfulfilled) of obtaining employment in England. Poignantly he told the court that in December 1911 his household furniture was taken by his landlord of his then residence in Johannesburg in settlement of a claim for rent. On marriage he had contracted into an ante-nuptial settlement with his wife so that he could not utilise her assets to pay his debts. Difficult times – and bankruptcy A cutting from The Times in June 1913 revealed to many the financial problems of the recent South African captain.