Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

77 Chapter Twelve Johannesburg 1901-1904 In 1955 when South Africa were due to tour England, Neville Cardus in an article in Wisden wrote: For more than a quarter of a century the field or arena of international cricket was occupied almost exclusively by England and Australia, until in 1905-06, South Africa, winning four out of five Test matches against England, rushed in almost with the rude violence of the gate crasher. South Africa had emulated Australia’s example and learned first principles from an English player, namely George Lohmann; even as Australia learned them from Caffyn. Lord Hawke contributed to South African education in cricket when he took teams to play in a country match agitated at the time by the Jameson Raid… Pioneers of the game born or bred in South Africa included Sir Donald Currie, the Hon.J.D.Logan, and in more recent times Sir Abe Bailey. Another asset to the awakening cause was Frank Mitchell, not unknown in Yorkshire, during the county’s greatest seasons. The above lines were written twenty years after Frank Mitchell’s death, and fifty years after the commencement of ‘ the awakening cause’ to which Cardus referred. It may well be the case that Frank Mitchell did play a significant part in the recognition of South Africa by the English cricketing authorities as being a country with a major cricketing future. How and why did Mitchell then come to be in South Africa in late 1901? The answer is probably largely for financial reasons. He was a fine amateur cricketer, but his personal means, as the son of a farmer, were unlikely to be substantial. Unlike most counties, Yorkshire did not provide their amateurs with a spurious form of employment as assistant secretary which, for example, Surrey did with W.W.Read. Mitchell simply had to acquire a regular income. School mastering with time off for the long summer months and then more time off for winter touring was never going to be financially attractive, and it was not until after World War II that any middle or upper middle class Cambridge graduate could contemplate becoming a professional cricketer. By the standards of those days, such a change in status would be totally demeaning. So Frank Mitchell had to bite the bullet and he determined that successful though he had been in 1901, and previously in 1899, he had to obtain regular work. But why in South Africa? Here there must be an element of conjecture. Young white entrepreneurs were travelling from England to South Africa or Australia, and it is possible that two out of three of Mitchell’s elder brothers had already taken that route. The eldest brother,