Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

18 touch, and is one of the few tacklers of the team. Has developed into a good captain, and to his energy in that position much of the success of the team is due.’ Other school sport Mitchell’s strong right arm was also evident in athletics, when it was field events rather than those on the track that caught his interest. Fast running in whatever game he played was never going to be a strong suit. From his second summer of 1884 he was prominent in throwing the cricket ball, once a popular field attraction, and he repeatedly won the competition within his age group throughout his time at school. If throwing cricket balls in time fell out of favour as a competitive event, putting the shot did not do so, and that became and remains an Olympic sport. Mitchell was to win the school sports in putting the shot in both 1889 and 1890 with throws of 30 ft 1 in and 32 ft 5 in. Six years later he was to gain a place in the Cambridge athletics side to meet Oxford with a throw of 35 ft 6in. What a powerful frame he must have had as a schoolboy when aged only 16 and 17! Finally, with the non-cricketing sports there remained rowing. Frank Mitchell became a participant in The Boats for St Peter’s from 1886. By 1887 he was rowing on the River Ouse for his house, and by 1888 he was in the teams for the school sculls and school IV. His strength and endurance were to make him the leading rower before he left St Peter’s. This was, however, one sport that he did relinquish upon leaving school. Frank Mitchell left school at the age of nearly 18 in the summer of 1890. Many at that age would have hoped to go on to university but that was not to be the case for this young man. He had wanted to go to the Queen’s College, Oxford and applied for a Lady Hastings Exhibition, a scholarship available to those who had attended St Peter’s school, as well as students from other schools. However he failed the initial Latin oral examination, and seemingly, for his parents having six children were not wealthy, without the scholarship he was unable to go up to Oxford. There would now be a need to earn a living – a need which was to thwart higher sporting ambition in some of the years ahead. Meanwhile in the short summer interval of July to September 1890 he had an opportunity to play for, and not against, the Yorkshire Gentlemen. In his very first appearance he had the satisfaction of scoring 60 not out and 61 in a prestigious match against MCC. Perhaps to his chagrin he may also have noticed that for 1891 St Peter’s school cricket club, for the first time recognizing the need for some professional aid, appointed Edward (Ted) Wainwright, still a Yorkshire player as their occasional coach. With the summer of 1890 over, employment beckoned.  St Peter’s School, 1883-1890