Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

14 Chapter Two St Peter’s School, 1883-1890 Frank Mitchell entered St Peter’s School in the heart of York in May 1883. He was ten years old. He was about to enter a new phase in his education, a seven-year period at the end of which his sporting talent would have been noticed by the most influential man in Yorkshire cricket – Lord Hawke. St Peter’s has had a notable history. There is evidence of its foundation by Paulinus at the same time as the famous Minster in 627, so it may be the third oldest school in England after the two King’s Schools at Canterbury and Rochester. Though it may have been re-endowed in 1555 by Philip and Mary as part of an endeavour to convert the citizens of York back to Roman Catholicism, it soon reverted to a Protestant ethos, and remains closely connected to the Minster. At one time one of the masters was Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot fame. The school and its cricket ground have been on its present site since 1844. When Frank Mitchell entered the school, it had no reputation for producing outstanding cricketers. The only former Peterite to have St Peter’s School and Cricket Ground in 1937 with the new library block opened in 1935 – the year that Frank Mitchell died. The visiting team do not seem to be all schoolboys.