Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

108 The later years (1889-1904) then reportedly ‘unhinged his mind’, and as a result ‘the severe mental strain was more than he could endure in his nervous condition, and his mind gave way under it.’ He had ‘a relapse, and it was found necessary that he should have absolute quiet and rest.’ He too became an inmate at the Leicester Borough Asylum. This was not to last for long and better news on Emmett was reported soon after that within a few weeks he would be out. On 23 May 1903, the Leeds Mercury noted that some ‘rather sensational reports’ had been circulating about Emmett which were ‘much exaggerated’ and added: It appears that for some time his mental condition had been by no means satisfactory, and it was thought desirable to place him in an asylum. On examination, however, it was at once found there was very little wrong with his mind, and that all that was really needed was few days’ rest and quiet. This he obtained in the asylum, and he was restored to his friends, with whom he has been living since, apparently quite recovered. In January 1904, it was then reported that Emmett had almost completely recovered from his recent severe illness. A journalist from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph met Tom’s son, Arthur, in Leicester and was told that the old cricketer had almost completely recovered and had also regained much of his old spirits and joviality. He was living close to his son, who was now looking after his welfare, and Yorkshire agreed an allowance of 14s a week for a further 12 months and paid for Emmett to be examined by a doctor. Some saw Emmett’s illness in a wider context. An article in The Quarterly Review on ‘Some Tendencies of Modern Sport’ commented that the strain of the first-class season was enormous, and was sometimes doubled by a visit to Australia. Reference was made to the suicide of Arthur Shrewsbury, the breakdown of Tom Emmett and the death of John Briggs to support the theory that ‘the demand on the human frame involved a heavy mental strain’. Other cricketers mentioned who had suffered included Lohmann, Peate, Bates, Davidson, Barnes and Shilton and Challender. Unfortunately, the improvement in Emmett’s fortune was only temporary, and on 2 April 1904, Emmett’s other son, Albert, who was a railway engine fitter, died at Home Hospital, Leicester, aged 32. 72 Shocked by this further tragedy, Emmett carried on with the help of friends and family, but on Wednesday 29 June 1904, Tom Emmett died. During the day, he had watched Leicestershire’s win over Worcestershire, apparently ‘deeply interested in the play’. He then returned to his home at 95, Devana Road, Leicester at 5pm. Here ‘he seemed pretty much as usual, but an hour later he was suddenly seized with an apopleptic fit, lost consciousness, and gradually sank. For a year or two he had been afflicted by brain trouble, and all his former mirth and gaiety of spirits had given place to melancholy.’ Emmett’s death certificate reveals that he had actually suffered from what was referred to as disseminated sclerosis for four years (today more commonly called multiple sclerosis), a chronic progressing disease