Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

117 Blackheath, Nigeria and family days leases over 11,629 acres and exclusive prospecting licences over an area of 85 square miles. The silver lead rights covered six square miles. However the rewards were plainly not sufficient and though Frank Mitchell must have attained an income from the Corporation for nearly ten years, it was wound up in December 1929 and amalgamated with the Anglo-Nigerian Corporation Ltd. Mitchell did not become a director of the new company. Other companies for which at one time NBMC had controlling interests and of which by 1927 Frank Mitchell had become a director were Batura Monguna Tin Ltd., Lafon River Tin Areas (Nigeria) Ltd., and Zuma Tin Areas (Nigeria) Ltd. As confirmed by entries in the London Gazette , the Batura and Lafon companies went into voluntary liquidation in 1931 and 1935. It is thus strange that Mitchell was still shown within the Directory of Directors as Chairman of the Batura Company from 1932-1935. It has to be the directory that is wrong rather than the London Gazette, presumably failing to update its information . The tin industry in Nigeria eventually reached its peak in about 1940 but when oil was found in the 1950s, oil extraction became a more attractive industry for the country. Such mines as remained were nationalised in 1972 and now tin accounts for only about 0.3% of the country’s total exports. After Mitchell’s discharge from bankruptcy, considered shortly, he took on business directorships for other companies. By the year of his death, 1935, he was a director of Akim (1928) Ltd and had expanded his metallic interests from base metals, through tin to gold, by becoming chairman of the Atta Gold Company (1928) Ltd. In his Cricketer writings he made a passing reference to having visited the Poona Club in India, and to a stay of six months in the East when Ranjitsinhji was ‘ the talk of the bazaar’. Whether he was gainfully occupied in India is not known. There must have been opportunities to return to South Africa where his wife’s family continued to live and work. When he died his occupation on the death certificate was given as ‘Company Director’. Cricket and journalism were not, on that certificate, given a mention. Nor was there any mention of an occupation in his will dated 11 February 1935, and prepared less than a year before his death by his friend and solicitor J.R.Mason, the former Kent cricketer, and by which he left his limited assets entirely to his wife. He did not become a property owner and may have been dependent upon his wife’s funds, briefly referred to in the bankruptcy proceedings in 1913. That bankruptcy was brought to an end in 1931, for in September 1930 Mitchell applied for a discharge from the bankruptcy order. Until 1928 it was permissible for an undischarged bankrupt to be a company director, but the Companies Act 1928 which came into force on 3 August brought that scenario to an end. Those who were already directors could retain their directorships, but could not take on new ones without an order of the court, or without the bankruptcy being discharged. Frank Mitchell still had nine unpaid creditors, nothing at all having been repaid since the 1913 Order. Notices were sent to the creditors at their last known addresses but none responded. The Senior and Chief Bankruptcy Registrar, Frank Mellor,