Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

105 The Creation of Watney Mann Crossman and Paulin. The second of these two alternatives was adopted and Mann, Crossman and Paulin were approached with proposals for an amalgamation. After lengthy negotiations agreement was reached for an amalgamation between the two companies and that output would be divided between Watney’s Mortlake Brewery and Mann’s Whitechapel brewery. The new company, with over 5,000 pubs in its estate, was to be known as Watney Mann Ltd. but separate names would be preserved for trading purposes. It was agreed by stockholders that Watney’s would acquire the whole of the issued share capital of Mann’s in exchange for shares in Watney’s on a fair and equitable basis. Directors of both breweries now joined the parent board of Watney Mann Ltd., and included D.P.Crossman, F.G.Mann and T.C.Mann. The Albion brewery in East London immediately took over the trade in mild and brown ales that would be lost by the closure of the Stag Brewery. Everything seemed set for the new company to move forward until the announcement in 1959 that Charles Clore, financier and chairman of Sears Holdings, interested mainly in the company’s property assets, intended to make an offer to the Watney Mann stockholders for 75% of the ordinary capital of Watney Mann Ltd. There was an immediate reaction from the company staff and employees, co-ordinated by George Mann as personnel manager, who offered to apply part of their salaries to the purchase of shares in the company if that would help to stave off the threatened take- over. That show of strength and commitment from the workforce was enough to deter Sears Holdings from going ahead with their offer. Watney Mann could now proceed with its progress as a new force in the brewing industry and George was elected Master of the Brewers Company in 1960. New responsibilities as a member of the Watney Mann board of directors gave George little opportunity to play much cricket, even one-day touring club matches, and he is recorded as only playing three times in the 1960s. He went with the Forty Club to play Eton in 1964 and showed he had lost none of his old batting technique by top-scoring with 60 out of 161, although it wasn’t enough to stop the College from recording a great victory: and that same year he captained an ‘Old England XI’ against the Lord’s Taverners at Lord’s. A few weeks later Frank Mann died at the age of 76 at Milton Lilbourne in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire. In the obituary that appeared in The Cricketer , Nigel Haig, who had played with him from 1912 to 1930 and succeeded him as Middlesex captain in 1929, wrote: ‘He was a person of much dignity, a distinguished cricketer and Mann’s Brown Ale, 2015 style, now produced at Burton. When first brewed in 1902, it attracted many imitations.