“Too daring for the grey-beards?”: The Mental Health of Harold Gimblett

Harold Gimblett in 1936 (Image: Wikipedia)

The incredible first-class debut of Harold Gimblett, the 20-year-old son of a farmer, for Somerset in 1935 catapulted him to fame from the very start of his career. His 63-minute century against Essex was one of the most spectacular debuts by any player and suggested that a promising career was beginning. When Gimblett was forced to retire 19 years later owing to a severe mental health condition which required his admission to hospital, he had largely fulfilled that promise. Over those years, he was to prove more than useful. He became — and remains, almost seventy years after his retirement — Somerset’s leading run-scorer in first-class cricket. He was an entertainer much loved by the county’s supporters and played many great innings. And yet underneath the success, there was tension and bitterness, to which there were two contributing factors. The first was the nature of cricket in the years around the Second World War: a Somerset Committee which handled all professionals with a brutal lack of sympathy, empathy or understanding, and a sport riven by deliberate class distinction in which the amateurs were on top, and professionals were treated as menial hired hands (a distinction which was often harsher at counties like Somerset which had a greater proportion of amateurs in the team). But the second factor was Gimblett’s own lifelong struggle with mental health.

Most of what we know about this comes from Gimblett’s own account, provided in a series of tape recordings intended for the ears of David Foot, with whom he planned to collaborate on an autobiography. The project never got off the ground before Gimblett’s suicide in 1978, but Foot turned the searingly, painfully honest recordings into a 1982 biography Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket. There had never quite been anything like it before, owing to the fact that Gimblett did not intend his words to be published when he spoke them (but he gave permission, as did his widow after his death, for Foot to use them) and so they did not have the usual filter applied by sporting stars in writing their autobiographies. There is no parallel account of the life of a cricketer in the period around the Second World War. And yet his words find an echo in the experiences of modern players whose mental health suffers under the unrelenting pressure of professional and international sport. This can be seen most clearly in his memories of his Test debut for England in the first match of a series against India in 1936, in which he dreaded having to play. But an unbeaten, match-winning 67 in the second innings (the highest score of the game) provided him with another fairly-tale debut and meant that he retained his place. This proved something of a turning point for him.

At the time, the England selectors were looking around for new players to refresh the team and replace some veterans after a string of poor results. For the second Test, Gimblett’s opening partner was the debutant Arthur Fagg, who like him was only 21 years old. In a high-scoring game, Gimblett made just nine runs out of England’s 571 for eight declared. He also missed a catch when India batted and was dropped from the team for the third Test. While somewhat relieved to escape from the pressure, he was affected for the rest of the summer by what he perceived as his failure, which continued to weigh on his mind and impacted on his form. After his Somerset debut the previous summer, he had similarly struggled for consistency in the aftermath, but never questioned his own methods. Nor had he particularly clashed with the Somerset authorities. But something seemed to change (if we can believe his own account) now that he was an international cricketer. The Somerset Committee attempted to force him to temper his aggression, but he was not willing to compromise, even when he form had fallen away. For the rest of the season, he struggled with the hook shot, which he had always played successfully, and sought out Herbert Sutcliffe, an acknowledged expert at the shot, for technical advice. An unsympathetic Somerset Committee simply told him to stop playing the shot, which he refused to do. He also clashed with his captain after one game in which he hit a full toss for six in the last over of a day’s play; he was told that he would be dropped if he ever took such a risk again.

The result of all this was another loss of form. In his first five matches of the season, Gimblett had scored 623 runs with three centuries, at an average of 103.83. By the time of his selection for England, he had scored 1,041 runs in 12 matches at 57.83. In the remainder of the season, he managed just 605 runs at 18.91. His final record for 1936 was 1,608 first-class runs at an average of 32.81; respectable but far short of what seemed possible at the start. His temperament in big matches and his slip fielding were also questioned by Wisden, which, as it had done after his debut, counselled a more careful approach. But how much had the scrutiny of the opening weeks of the season, and the pressure — and what would probably today be termed as anxiety — before his England debut affected him? The effects lasted into the following two seasons, when Gimblett struggled to live up to the potential identified in the press. Others overtook him in the race for England places, and he seemed unsure of the best way to bat. He was heavily criticised in 1937 for his overly aggressive batting and was briefly dropped down the order. Yet he was outwardly unconcerned and stubbornly maintained his approach; sometimes he seemed overconfident and played in deliberately unorthodox fashion. Again, this is perhaps less an indication of arrogance and more a sign that all was not well. He still managed 1,500 runs that summer, at an average just over thirty, but fell away in 1938, and his average dropped to 27. Moreover, he was often unfit, battling “aches and pains”.

Gimblett at his wedding to Ria Burgess in 1938 (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

Gimblett finally began to recover his batting skill in 1939, and made a distinct advance. Perhaps this was early a result of his previous experiences, or perhaps it arose from a change in his personal life. In December 1938, he had married Marguerita (Rita) Burgess, whom he had known for some years. They eventually had a son, Lawrence. Whatever the cause, Gimblett made an excellent start to the 1939, similar to that of 1936, and scored 905 runs in his first seven games. Such form resulted in a recall to the England team for the first Test against the West Indies team that toured during the season. Perhaps unfortunately, it was once more played at Lord’s, a ground that often made him uncomfortable owing to what he perceived as extreme snobbery and social prejudice. In the first innings, he was bowled by John Cameron for 22 when he lost sight of a flighted delivery; in the second, he hit his first two deliveries, bowled by Leslie Hylton, for four and six, as England chased a target against the clock. But in looking to score quickly, he was bowled by Manny Martindale. Unlike during his previous Test appearances, his fielding was singled out for praise in Wisden; he took one spectacular catch to dismiss Ken Weekes, for which he was congratulated by the new batter, Learie Constantine. But he had not done quite enough and was dropped for the final time, having played only three Tests for England. Although it is hard to be certain, some of his team-mates suspected in later years that, whenever there was a chance that he might come back into England selection, such as before a touring team was chosen, he deliberately batted poorly so that he would not be picked. Nevertheless, in 1939 he managed to maintain his form and finished the season with 1,922 runs at 40.89.

The outbreak of war in 1939 brought a pause in Gimblett’s career, and he found the next few years difficult. He volunteered for the Air Force, but for reasons that are not quite clear was instead allocated to the Fire Service where his duties involved dealing with the aftermath of bombing raids. Foot notes that some of Gimblett’s team-mates thought that guilt from not seeing active service affected him after the war. But he was equally affected by his experiences as a fireman, especially when some of his colleagues were killed in an air raid, and he possibly suffered depression from having to deal with the destruction. Foot had received information that “his dormitory locker was full of pills.”

When county cricket resumed, Gimblett did better than ever. Somerset were surprisingly good in 1946 and finished fourth in the County Championship; Gimblett was a key player, averaging almost fifty. More circumspect than he had been, he still was capable of powerful shots but was less reckless. He scored his first double-century when he hit 231 against Middlesex in 320 minutes (32 fours, 1 six). If there was a slightly drop-off in 1947, the team leaned almost entirely on his runs in 1948. Against Sussex that summer, he scored 310 (465 minutes, 37 fours, 2 sixes), the highest innings by a Somerset player, surpassing the 52-year-old record set by the amateur Lionel Palairet, who scored 292 in 1896. However, the Somerset Committee refused to recognise the achievement. Gimblett said: “Arthur Wellard went to see the secretary, Brigadier Lancaster. ‘Harold’s just made 300. Will you allow a collection around the ground for him?’ The answer was prompt: “He’s paid to score 300. There will be no collection.’ I think that was when I first decided my career with Somerset was going to end. I was deeply hurt.” He and his team-mates suspected that the Somerset hierarchy were displeased that a professional had beaten the record of a famous and revered amateur from the past. But that was not his only spectacular achievement in 1948: against Glamorgan, he scored 70 which included six sixes in 13 balls from Len Muncer.

Somerset in 1946, illustrated on a benefit leaflet for F. S. Lee (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

This immediate post-war period was perhaps Gimblett’s peak as a cricketer. He was adored by the Somerset crowds and enjoyed their adulation. But this brought its own internal pressures. While he struggled with the scrutiny and expectations of playing for England, and although he did not like journalists or the press in general, he enjoyed hogging the headlines for Somerset and was sometimes jealous of team-mates who usurped the attention. He hated to fail, and team-mates described how he would throw his bat around the dressing room if he was dismissed cheaply; they knew to keep away. Nor did they criticise him, because he did not respond well; in fairness, he did not especially enjoy praise either. Yet it left him with a reputation as something of a prima donna, not least because his reactions could be unpredictable. Foot tells several stories: how he once refused a drink from a Somerset member after he scored a large century, and had to be persuaded to accept; how he angrily shouted at Lancashire members who were critical of an umpiring decision that went against their team: “Why don’t you go back to the bloody mills and do an honest day’s work”; how when he was dismissed early in an innings played at Lord’s, and an MCC member complained “I’m sorry you are out, Gimblett; I’ve come a long way to watch you bat”, he stopped and replied: “You ought to have bloody well stayed at home.”

Nor was he a particularly good team-mate. Although he got on well with the other professionals, he was not especially interested in their success. He did not usually watch them bat, and only rarely offered technical advice despite being knowledgable about such matters. And he did not always consider the interests of his team while he was batting; he sometimes played how he wanted to play rather than as the situation demanded and sometimes was prone to play deliberately poorly if he knew selectors were watching. One amateur team-mate, according to Foot, suggested that if he was hit by a short ball (although he was generally very skilled against bouncers and fast bowling), he sometimes surrendered his wicket shortly after. Nevertheless, when the mood took him, he was a good team man, getting his head down and seeing off the new ball, or battling through difficult situations when Somerset were in trouble. Yet he never wanted responsibility and captaincy held no appeal for him.

Perhaps more importantly, Gimblett rarely got along with the amateurs in the team and could be difficult for the captain to deal with, particularly at a time when Somerset had a succession of short-lived captains who struggled to establish themselves. In fact, he had a problem with authority, refusing the demands of the Somerset Committee to drop the hook shot; he lacked deference even towards figures as distinguished as Pelham Warner. As the writer (and former Somerset player) R. C. Robertson-Glasgow put it: “Someone remarked that perhaps he is too daring for the grey-beards. My own view is that he is also too daring for the majority of the black-beards, brown beards and the all-beards, who sit in judgement on batsmen; in short, too daring for those who have never known what it is to dare in cricket.” The editor of a local newspaper who went to school with Gimblett called him an “infuriating enigma”. John Daniell, a hugely influential figure at Somerset for much of Gimblett’s time there, was baffled by the opener. He was often heard muttering: “That bloody Gimblett”. The latter in turn never forgave Daniell for rejecting him as a Somerset player before he made his famous debut (when he was chosen, just as an unsuccessful two-week trial was coming to an end, largely because no-one else was available).

Off the field, Gimblett had a reputation as a hypochondriac; he complained of aches and pains and suffered from migraines. He frequently visited doctors and was known, particularly after his mental health struggles became serious, for always having bottles of painkillers in his kit. He often kept to himself and was very introverted. Yet his rebelliousness was admired by his fellow professionals, who often conformed to get ahead.

Gimblett set another record in 1949, when he reached 2,000 first-class runs in the season for the first time; his 2,063 runs was the highest in a season for Somerset (beating Frank Lee’s 2,019 runs in 1938). During another solid season in 1950, Gimblett made runs for Somerset against the touring West Indies team. As a result, when Len Hutton withdrew from the England Test side, Gimblett was chosen to replace him. However, Gimblett developed a painful carbuncle on his neck and therefore was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to play; there were suggestions that the carbuncle might have arisen through the stress of his selection.

During the 1950–51 season, a “Commonwealth XI” toured India and what was then known as Ceylon; this took place at the same time that an England team toured Australia. Gimblett was chosen in the Commonwealth team and did reasonably well on the field. But he did not enjoy the tour: “It was a bad time for me — I had no energy, no spark, no conversation. I became very withdrawn. At first I wondered whether I’d picked up a bug. But it was purely mental.” He also struggled with Indian food and climate; he lost weight and came home looking very thin. Foot concluded that “Gimblett was temperamentally unsuited to touring”. But even this might be harsh; the experience he describes sounds very similar to the accounts of more recent England players, like Jonathan Trott and Marcus Trescothick, who hated the life of a touring cricketer, which exacerbated their symptoms of anxiety.

Gimblett batting at Bristol against Gloucestershire in 1953 (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

The after-effects of the tour lingered into the 1951 season and Gimblett took a complete break in July, after doctors told him that he was “run down”. When he returned in August, he scored three centuries. The instability of the Somerset team cannot have helped; both the captain and Gimblett’s opening partner changed with bewildering frequency in this period. During his benefit season of 1952, he scored 2,000 runs again. At the end of the season, he took his family on a six-month trip to Rhodesia after being invited there in order to coach and play a little cricket. He was tempted to stay but chose to honour his Somerset contract and, according to Foot, “the pending political mood [in Rhodesia] bothered him.” Although he scored heavily again in 1953, there were suggestions that he had stopped enjoying the game and rumours of his imminent retirement, or his need for psychiatric treatment, circulated. Although he continued to bat well, Foot suggested that he was “inclined to look an old man” even though he was only 38. Gimblett himself said: “I couldn’t take much more. I was taking sleeping pills to make me sleep and others to wake me up. By the end of 1953, the world was closing in on me. I couldn’t offer any reason why and I don’t think the medical profession knew, either. There were months of the past season that I couldn’t remember at all.”

After struggling over Christmas 1953, Gimblett was admitted to the mental hospital Tone Vale (near Taunton) and had electro-convulsant therapy twice a week. He was a patient for sixteen weeks before rejoining Somerset for the 1954 season. He struggled through pre-season and played the first game although he wanted to come off mid-innings. When he was out for 29, he returned to the dressing room and had what Foot called “a bitter little monologue”, while Gimblett said that “I wanted to get it all out of the system in one go.” There were suggestions that he was reported to the Secretary; in the next game, he scored a duck against Yorkshire and when he returned to the dressing room, said that he couldn’t take any more. He left the ground mid-game; he batted in the second innings but was told by the captain to take some time off. He never played for Somerset again; he was soon a patient at Tone Vale once more. When he returned to the county ground later in the season to sit in the scorers’ box, he was ordered to leave.

The rejection, and lack of sympathy from Somerset throughout his career, left Gimblett bitter. Although he served on the Somerset Committee in the 1960s, and was heavily involved in fund-raising, he never quite forgave the county. These feelings were doubtless exacerbated by his mental health struggles, which continued for the rest of his life. He never knew the cause because he never received a diagnosis. But his problems were by no means limited to his cricketing experiences.

At the time of his enforced retirement, Gimblett had amassed an excellent record. He had scored 23,007 first-class runs at 36.17 (and took 41 wickets at 51.80); of those, 21,142 were for Somerset and even today, almost seventy years after his retirement, he remains Somerset’s leading run-scorer in first-class cricket, just ahead of Marcus Trescothick. In among those runs, he scored fifty first-class centuries; all but one came for Somerset, but he is second to Trescothick in the list of leading century scorers for the county. His innings of 310 remains the fifth highest score for Somerset; it was surpassed by Viv Richards in 1985 (and the record-holder is currently Justin Langer with 341). In his three Test matches, he scored 129 runs at 32.25.

After leaving Somerset, Gimblett briefly played professionally for Ebbw Vale Cricket Club, having struggled to find other employment. He also began to work at a steel works in South Wales as a safety inspector. He struggled with his mental health and the job in the steel works — and the unions — and at one point drove back to Somerset alone for a day, not returning home until the night. In his second season at Ebbw Vale, he left the steel works and took a job working on a farm but his schedule left him too tired to play for the club mid-week and his contract was terminated by mutual agreement. He later took a job at R. J. O. Meyer’s Millfield School as the head coach, with half an eye on returning to play for Somerset. Meyer was supportive but the Committee did not want Gimblett to return. In any case, he worked for twenty years at Millfield, performing various roles (including running the sports shop) and playing plenty of informal cricket. When Meyer retired, Gimblett’s relationship with the school became fractious and he began to hate his job. At one point, recognising that he was struggling, he applied to another school before changing his mind. He once more was treated in a mental hospital with electro-convulsant therapy. He retired on medical advice, not least as he was struggling with various physical ailments (some of which required surgery in later years).

In his final years became more and more reclusive, and by the end of his life actively disliked cricket. Even his wife, to whom he remained close, told Foot that she never entirely understood him. In his turn, Gimblett felt that he had been unkind to her early in their relationship, and regretted it. In March 1978, Gimblett took an overdose and was discovered next morning by his wife. Foot summarised this unhappy ending: “The tragedy is that he was able to share too little of the joy and sheer pleasure he brought to the game of cricket.” But this seems too simple of a conclusion for a complicated man who clearly had endured serious mental health problems which would have been beyond the comprehension of his contemporaries, little understood by the medical establishment of the time and even when Foot was writing in 1982 remained a source of shame and stigmatisation. Perhaps in the modern world — and even in modern cricket — Gimblett might have received better treatment (in both the medical and professional sense).

We cannot do justice to such a complex issue — nor, in fairness, to a complex life — here. But perhaps we can consider his standing as a cricketer. A sympathetic obituary in Wisden, although it did not mention his cause of death, summarised his career very effectively: “People sometimes talk as if after [his debut] he was a disappointment. In fact his one set-back, apart from being overlooked by the selectors, was when in 1938, probably listening to the advice of grave critics, he attempted more cautious methods and his average dropped to 27. But can one call disappointing a man who between 1936 and his retirement in 1953 never failed to get his 1,000 runs, who in his career scored over 23,000, more than any other Somerset player, and fifty centuries, the highest 310 against Sussex at Eastbourne in 1948, and whose average for his career was over 36?”

The Astonishing Debuts of Harold Gimblett

Harold Gimblett in 1936 (Image: Wikipedia)

It was the absolute exemplar of a fairy tale debut. Harold Gimblett was a man coming to the end of an unsuccessful two-week trial, in whom his captain had no faith, when he was picked to play for Somerset against Essex in May 1935. He played largely because no-one else was available and the publishers of the printed scorecards available at all games at this time did not even know his initials. He came to the wicket at number eight, when the scorecard read 106 for six. Just over an hour later, he reached one of the most spectacular debut centuries in the history of first-class cricket. Perhaps inevitably, the rest of Gimblett’s playing career, as successful as it undoubtedly was (and Foot, in 1982, called Gimblett the “greatest batsman Somerset have ever produced”), never quite lived up to that debut; sport is full of similar stories of spectacular beginnings that peter out. But in Gimblett’s case, the reasons are far from typical and the course of his cricketing life provides one of the earliest-documented cases of the devastating effect that cricket can have on mental health.

Gimblett’s story was once well-known, and was told astonishingly well by David Foot in his 1982 biography Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket. The book was enormously influential and became the standard work on Gimblett. The main reason for this — other than some excellent, and unusually restrained, writing from Foot — was that it was based on extensive tape recordings made by Gimblett before his death in 1978, which were intended to form the basis of a book which he hoped to write about his life with Foot’s help. Searingly and painfully honest, and never sanitised or polished for his final audience, Gimblett’s words — frequently given in full by Foot — give an almost unique insight into the thoughts of a professional cricketer in the 1930s. Of course, the usual caveats apply, not least that Gimblett was discussing events from forty years previously and his recollections were doubtless skewed by his mental health struggles during his playing days. But even so, it is a unique book and no biography/autobiography about a pre-war cricketer really compares to it for its honesty. As John Arlott wrote in his foreword, “There has never been a cricket book quite like this”.

However, the format has become more familiar since Tormented Genius was published; many recent cricketers have opened up about their own struggles after another Somerset opener, Marcus Trescothick, wrote Coming Back to Me (2008), an autobiography described by Gideon Haigh as “seminal”, about the mental health problems that ended his own career. Even before that, Ken Barrington wrote a little-remembered book called Playing It Straight (1968) which revealed his own problems with mental health that prompted him to take a break from the game in 1966 because he felt “on the brink of a nervous breakdown”. But Barrington was clearly uncomfortable discussing such matters in print: apologetic, even defensive, and concerned with what his audience might think. Modern autobiographies suffer from similar guardedness, a sense of “what will they think?” But Gimblett largely speaking for Foot, not for the reading public, so that caution is replaced with complete honesty. Even if we cannot be certain that everything he said was factually accurate — or even, at times, fair — we are reading Gimblett’s unvarnished thoughts and opinions.

Our starting point really should be that amazing first-class debut, but this requires a little background. Harold Gimblett was born in 1914 at Blakes’ Farm, Bicknoller, Somerset. He was the youngest son of Percy and Louise Gimblett. His father was a farmer, making his family relatively prosperous; he and his two older brothers attended West Buckland school in North Devon. He quickly made his name as a cricketer, and was part of the school’s First Eleven by the age of 13. In one early game, he recalled the thrill of facing the opposition’s “demon” fast bowler when batting at number nine. His batting won the game and he later recalled it as one of his proudest achievements. He was always adventurous with the bat; he remembered hitting his first ball in an organised game of cricket for six; playing for West Buckland Second Eleven at the age of twelve, he once ran seven after hitting the ball into a patch of nettles but was out trying to improvise another shot into the same nettles. But he was highly effective at school level; Foot described him as “occasionally reckless, usually dominant”. Yet off the field, he struggled with homesickness and struggled to mix with his fellow pupils. He was reluctantly appointed the team captain at the age of fifteen; worried by the prospect of leading older boys, he initially tried to back out of the appointment.

Leaving school in 1931, he initially went to London to work in the grocery trade but soon returned to Somerset and worked on the family farm. He played plenty of club cricket, usually successfully, and rattled up several big scores. Playing for the Somerset Stragglers in 1932, he scored 142 in 75 mins against Wellington School from number six, his first ever century. The following season, he scored 150 in 80 minutes against the Stragglers, playing for Watchet. He played an increasing amount of cricket for Watchet, batting in a very carefree style that meant he would alter his approach — shutting up shop and defending, or throwing away his wicket — on a whim. But the number of runs he scored attracted attention from the press.

A local tailor called W. G. Penny thought that Gimblett was good enough to play for Somerset and encouraged him in this direction despite a palpable lack of enthusiasm from the man himself. He had to be cajoled into playing in the annual match between a Somerset XI and a team selected by Penny, but he made an impression in one such match by striking the former England bowler and ex-Somerset captain Jack White for three sixes. Somerset thought he was too risky a player, or not quite good enough. But Penny persisted and Gimblett was offered two-week trial as a professional in May 1935. As was typical in the Somerset team in this period, he was simply shown his place in the changing room and told to keep to himself. He did not excel in the nets and was told he was not good enough; the Somerset secretary John Daniell told him he would be paid for the first week and then let go. Gimblett latter claimed that had enjoyed the experience, but wasn’t too disappointed (although Foot believed that the actual event was more fraught and argumentative than Gimblett recalled in the 1970s). He performed some twelfth-man duties in one match, although he did not travel with the team to an away game.

But a late injury to Laurie Hawkins before Somerset played Essex at Frome on 18 May meant that a replacement could not be secured at short notice and so Gimblett was asked to play. The ground was in a somewhat rural location, making it hard for Gimblett to reach. He arranged a lift with a team-mate but missed his bus and had to hitch to the agreed rendezvous. When he arrived at the ground, he was very nervous; when he was advised that the Essex bowler Peter Smith would bowl him a googly early in his innings, he did not know what a googly was because he had never seen one. Or so he later claimed. Somerset won the toss, batted and crumbled to 106 for six shortly after lunch. The damage had been done by the pace bowling of Maurice Nichols. Gimblett came in, using the spare bat of Arthur Wellard (his own had looked dirty enough that Wellard suggested that he borrow his), who was already in the middle. Smith bowled him a googly third ball, but he took a single without reading it; the next over, he hit Smith for fifteen runs, including a six over mid-off.

Arthur Wellard (left) and Gimblett walking to the wicket in August 1935 (Image: Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 9 August 1935)

And with that, Gimblett began to score quickly. He and Wellard added 69 in nine overs, of which Wellard hit 48. He brought up his fifty with a six (28 minutes, 33 deliveries) and even after two quick wickets fell, Gimblett continued to hit, driving, sweeping and hooking. Assisted by a short boundary, his score mounted rapidly; a hook for four off Nichols was followed by a two. Although the primitive scoreboard did not include the individual scores of batters, spectators told him that he had reached an almost unbelievable century. It had taken 63 minutes and come out of 130 runs scored; it was the fastest century of the season, for which Gimblett was awarded the Walter Lawrence Trophy in September. He was eventually dismissed for 123 (79 minutes, 17 fours, 3 sixes); Somerset reached a total of 337 and, on the third day, won by an innings.

Although many batters had previously scored a century on their first-class debut — The Cricketer suggested that 22 men had done so in county cricket since 1868 — few had done so in such spectacular fashion; The Cricketer noted that the circumstances in which Gimblett batted, and the pace at which he scored, meant that he had “surely outdone all previous century debutants”. Inevitably, the press were enthralled and suddenly began to pay a huge amount of attention to Gimblett. His emergence from no-where, and his family background were a gift to newspapers. The Daily Mirror, for example, reported his debut under the headline “Farm Boy Surprises Cricket!” It also featured a photograph of Gimblett at work on his father’s farm on the first page of the newspaper.

Jack Hobbs, one of the press by then, wrote that an innings such as that played by Gimblett brought enormous pressure. And it quickly took its toll. In his next match, played at Lord’s, Gimblett scored fifty in the second innings, but had to use a runner and missed a month of cricket; and there were few runs after that. He struggled to mix with the other professionals and disliked the snobbery he saw in the game; he particularly disliked many of the amateur players. Although his trial was extended and he played regularly for the rest of the season, he scored just one more fifty and his final record — 482 first-class runs at an average of 17.21 — was quite a come-down from the fairy-tale of his debut. Wisden acknowledged his loss of form, and concluded: “Almost entirely a forward player, he appeared to pay little heed to defence, and in the end lack of experience contributed to his undoing. Still, shrewd observers maintain that he possesses distinct possibilities, and with further opportunities he may become more than a useful member of the side.”

Gimblett photographed working on his father’s farm a few days after his first-class debut (Image: Daily Mirror, 20 May 1935)

Despite his collapse in form in 1935, Gimblett had done enough to persuade the committee that he had a future at Somerset, and he signed a professional contract at the end of the season (which was worth £300 if he appeared in every match). But even if he had been uncertain whether he wanted to pursue career in cricket, his hand was somewhat forced by the death of his father, shortly before the 1936 season. His family took over the running of the farm, but the financial pressure was eased considerably if Gimblett could be “cut loose” by supporting himself through his new cricket career. Although he was a regular in the Somerset team until after the Second World War, it was not always a smooth road.

Looking back forty years later, Gimblett — without saying so explicitly — clearly identified signs in 1936 that all was not well. He began the season in spectacular form. He was promoted to open the batting — a position he held for the rest of his career — and in the opening game of the season, when Somerset played the touring Indian team, he scored a century. In the following game, he hit 93 and 160 not out against Lancashire; in the next, he scored a century before lunch on the second morning (after the first day had been washed out) against Northamptonshire, when he hit six sixes and nine fours. This rich vein of form catapulted him back into the newspapers and made him famous all over again. Almost inevitably, he came into contention for a place in the England team for the Test series against India. After a poor run of results, the Test selectors wanted to freshen up the team and replace some veterans; after his famous debut and such a good start to the season, Gimblett seemed the ideal candidate. And when the selectors went to watch him, they saw his century before lunch at Northamptonshire.

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Gimblett batting during his excellent start to the 1936 season

In the tapes he recorded for David Foot, Gimblett remembered listening to the announcement of the Test side on the radio, but there was no excitement or anticipation: “I prayed that I wouldn’t be included. Far from throwing my hat in the air, I was terrified. Suddenly I realised the fearful responsibilities resting on my shoulders. The telephone started ringing, cars arrived, the usual nonsense. I just wanted to go away and get lost. I didn’t want to play for England.” Nor did it get any easier when he arrived at Lord’s, where the first test was to be played. He never liked Lord’s throughout his career, feeling it to be a place of prejudice and snobbery. When he looked outside before the match began, he was overwhelmed by the sight of 30,000 spectators waiting for the start of play; he had to be reassured and distracted by his teammates, the Yorkshire players Hedley Verity and Maurice Leyland.

Gimblett’s experience of being selected bears quite a few similarities to the experiences of modern players who faced mental health problems during their careers. In a 2020 interview, Jonathan Trott described what happened before one Test in 2013: “I knew I was in a little bit of trouble, not wanting to play. That’s when the whole anxiety of putting the tracksuit on and going to the ground was triggered.” Trott in particular struggled with the scrutiny of playing at the top level by the end of his career. This sounds very similar to the experiences described by Gimblett. In the same feature, Marcus Trescothick described what happened to him in 2006: “I had no idea what was going on at that point. I had all these feelings and emotions — not sleeping, not eating, not really being able to enjoy life or cope with what was going on. That was when it went completely pear-shaped. I knew then I was in a world of trouble. I didn’t know how to cope with or understand it. It was anxiety more than anything — I have always suffered more with anxiety than depression. There was a constant feeling of alertness, adrenaline, being worried about what was going on and how I was feeling. A panic.” And the footballer Michael Carrick spoke about not wanting to be picked for England after his experiences in 2010: “I was depressed at times, yes. I told the FA, ‘Look, please don’t pick me’.”

But in 1936, there was far less understanding than there might be today. Although Verity and Leyland might have sensed something, and tried to take care of Gimblett, the authorities would prove less understanding. But in the short term, it looked as if Gimblett had made a great success of his debut. In a low-scoring, rain-affected game, batters on both teams struggled. Gimblett scored 11 in the first innings, finding it hard to cope with the swing bowling of Amar Singh, who took six for 35. India actually took a narrow first-innings lead, but when they were bowled out for 93 early on the third and final morning, England needed 107 to win, which could have been tricky. Gimblett had spoken to Jack Hobbs after his first innings and received some technical tips, and the results were immediate. Having lost his opening partner, Arthur Mitchell, without a run on the board, Gimblett hit an unbeaten 67 in 100 minutes, the highest score of the game and one of only two fifties, including four successive fours from the pace-bowling of Mohammad Nissar. He had made a shaky start; but Wisden recorded: “As Gimblett got the pace of the wicket, however, he developed sound hitting powers and hooked superbly … The conditions during the last innings certainly favoured the batting side but Gimblett, who hit eleven 4s, played with much skill and nerve on his debut in Test cricket.” England won by nine wickets and Gimblett was once again the successful debutant. The Times called it “a glorious innings” and suggested he was a certain selection for the rest of the summer and beyond.

But Gimblett played just one more Test that summer, and only two more in the remainder of his career. While part of the reason was doubtless because his attacking style and refusal to play with more restraint concerned the England selectors, Gimblett’s story is far more complicated than that. In later years, many of his team-mates believed, he actively tried to prevent his own selection. And despite a very successful career that lasted until 1954, Gimblett never quite lived up to either his first-class or his Test debut. His cricket, like his life away from the sport, became a battle that he eventually lost…

“A Bowler of Great Promise”: The Thwarted Career of Ronald Lowe

Ronald Lowe in 1923 (Image: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 12 May 1923)

Cricketers who have been dubbed the “next Bradman”, the “next Botham”, the “next Warne” have historically been doomed to failure, and the Surrey left-arm spinner Ronald Lowe was no exception. After a spectacular entry into first-class cricket in 1923, he was immediately compared to Wilfred Rhodes and inevitably struggled to live up to such expectations. By the end of the season, he had lost his first-team place and never regained it. Released by Surrey after the 1925 season, he was convicted of theft in 1926 but got his life back on track and worked for the rest of his life as what would today be called a mental health nurse. At first glance, Lowe is just another of those who never made it, even if he was unusually feted early in his career. But under the surface, Lowe’s life was more complicated. Possibly he was simply never good enough to be a first-class cricketer. Or possibly his personal circumstances and several family crises derailed his sporting career before it had even begun.

Ronald Francis Lowe was born in Shepherd’s Bush, London, on 28 July 1905. He was the third child of Frederick William Lowe — who worked in the paint trade, and later became a commercial traveller — and Marie Frances Mulqueeny, the daughter of a quite extraordinary man called George Francis Luke Mulqueeny. The latter was an Irish nationalist who was tangentially involved in the “Pigott Conspiracy“, when he made it known that the letters being used by The Times to discredit the nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell were forgeries; Mulqueeny was also a serial bigamist and adulterer whose second wife (his first, Marie Frances’ mother, had died in 1892), when she unsuccessfully attempted to divorce him in 1900, revealed that he was regularly violent towards her and had given her a sexually transmitted disease acquired on his various adventures. He had served time in various prisons for indecent assault, was found not guilty of attempted rape, was imprisoned for theft in New Zealand, lived in Australia and died in the United States.

Frederick William Lowe and Marie Frances Mulqueeny at their wedding in 1900 (Image courtesy of Frederick Lowe and Elizabeth Merron)

Lowe’s parents married in 1900 (around the time his maternal grandfather was appearing in the divorce court) and had five children in total. By the 1920s the family lived in Mitcham in Surrey. Lowe had clearly begun to stand out as a cricketer because in 1920 he was playing on Mitcham Green when he was spotted by Herbert Thompson, the head of the groundstaff at the Oval, who signed him as a professional for Surrey the following year. The 1921 census lists the sixteen-year-old Lowe as a professional cricketer for Surrey. The same document records that the Lowe family lived in Clarendon House, Commonside East, in Mitcham. Lowe’s older sister was a nurse, which might be a relevant to what followed.

After working mainly for the groundstaff in 1921, Lowe made his debut in Surrey’s second eleven at the end of the 1922 season, although he did not take any wickets in his two matches.

At the time, Surrey were desperately short of bowling. Tom Rushby, the leader of the attack since 1903, had retired in 1921 at the age of 41; this left almost everything in the hands of Bill Hitch, a fast bowler already in his mid-30s and who retired in 1925, and the versatile Percy Fender, the team captain who was able to bowl leg-spin or medium pace as required. It was mainly owing to Fender’s captaincy and the team’s outstanding batting that Surrey were usually in the upper reaches of the County Championship despite their threadbare attack. What Surrey really needed was a spinner; the injury-enforced retirement of W. C. “Razor” Smith in 1914 left a gap in the team and Surrey never really had an effective specialist spinner until after the Second World War.

In a preview of the 1923 season, Robin Baily wrote in the Daily Herald that Surrey’s “hunt for new bowlers is being pursued with unrelenting energy and enterprise — trust Fender for that.” But desperation might have been a better word. In 1921 Fender had picked an underarm lob-bowler called Trevor Molony to play three games for the county in what was either a brave experiment or a ridiculous gamble to find someone capable of taking wickets. He was, unsurprisingly, not a success. Nevertheless, Baily observed that two young slow-left-arm bowlers had impressed in practice: Tom Jennings, the son of the coach at Marlborough School, and Lowe, then into his third season on the Surrey staff but still only seventeen years old.

Baily said: “During the next fortnight 30 or 40 young cricketers who have applied for a trial will given an opportunity of displaying their degree of skill at the nets. It is complained by those in charge at the Oval that promising inexperienced players are often ruined by premature harsh Press criticism. Youths, fresh from city parks and village greens, making their first appearance on good wickets and against professionals, are at once measured by the standard of [Jack] Hobbs, [Wilfred] Rhodes and the masters the game. If a raw recruit with genuine cricket gifts can be moulded into a useful second-team player in three seasons, he climbs the ladder of the game at a satisfactory gait. Genius, of course, moves faster, but Herbert Thompson, who is headmaster at the Oval ‘college’ of cricket, says: ‘Only the sensational journalist expects genius to be discovered every week.'”

Lowe bowling in the Surrey nets in 1921 at the age of fifteen

By a happy coincidence, the article by Baily was printed on 2 May; that same day Lowe made his first-class debut for Surrey. Perhaps fortunately, this was an away game in Cardiff against Glamorgan, who had only joined the County Championship in 1921 and had finished 17th (out of 17) in their first season, 16th in 1922 and would finish 16th in 1923. It was the gentle sort of introduction that many young players would have craved, and Lowe rose to the occasion. Rain delayed the start and the wet pitch offered assistance to his style of bowling; Lowe struck almost immediately, bowling the Glamorgan captain Thomas Whittington. His length became a little uncertain under an assault from Norman Riches, who scored a fairly rapid 70, but he and the rest of the Surrey team (which made a shaky start in general) recovered after the interval. Lowe removed three of the middle order and finished with figures of four for 60 from just short of 29 overs. Glamorgan were all out for 168. 

The following day, Glamorgan put up a good fight on a difficult pitch and dismissed Surrey for 158, but their ten-run first innings lead counted for little. Lowe was unplayable when the second innings began just before the close of play. In eleven overs, he took five wickets for ten runs and the home team collapsed to 22 for seven overnight. The following morning, Glamorgan struggled to 35 all out as the last three wickets fell to Fender. Lowe was left with the figures of 14–6–15–5 and had taken nine for 75 in the match. Surrey easily won by ten wickets.

Unsurprisingly, Lowe’s performance attracted the newspapers. His success was widely reported and over the following days, several features appeared. The analysis was that Lowe kept a good length and could make the ball “break back” from the off — presumably with an arm ball — but did not bowl with much flight. And, just as Thompson had predicted a few days earlier, Lowe was immediately compared to the “masters of the game”. The Yorkshire Evening Post headlined its report on the match “Another Wilfred Rhodes?”, included a photograph of Lowe and described his “sensational” debut. Rhodes, incidentally, was still a leading bowler at the age of 45, having topped the national bowling averages in 1922 and did so against in 1923. But the commentators probably had in mind his debut season of 1898 when he took thirteen wickets on his first County Championship appearance and took 154 in total.

Warren Young was more cautious in the Weekly Despatch, but still clearly excited by Lowe’s “fine bowling”, particularly as he was much younger than other bowlers who had been tried without success by Surrey: “It is too early yet to hail Lowe as a second Rhodes, though he is a slow left-handed bowler. His was a good performance, but it is as well to remember that this is the start of the season and the match was against Glamorgan and on a damp and damaged wicket. But the lad shows distinct promise … It will also be well if Surrey in their rather desperate need for bowlers do not spoil Lowe with overwork.”

In The People, Lowe was the main feature of an article by Hubert Preston (who edited Wisden from 1944 to 1951) about the first week of the season which had the headline “Surrey Discover Bowler of Great Promise”. Preston noted that Surrey had not possessed a slow-left-arm bowler of quality since Ted Barrett (who last played for Surrey in 1885) and noted that it was good that Lowe had not been forced to make his debut on the notoriously flat Oval pitch which had “broken the heart of many a young bowler”. He observed that the success would have been good for Lowe’s development and had discussed him with Thompson, who said that he had “every promised of being a great bowler; his prospect is very bright”. And The Cricketer, noting Lowe’s debut, said: “Lowe’s performance at Cardiff augurs well, but on a bowler’s wicket, against a poor county batting side, too much credence must not be taken for granted. The Oval wickets, if fine weather prevails, may tell a very different tale. With the style and type of modern batting as it is, no type of bowler has a better chance of getting wickets unless it is a first-rate right-hand leg-breaker.”

Lowe’s good form continued as Surrey toured the South-West; against Somerset, he took the first three wickets to fall, although he struggled to find a length, and finished with four for 51 in the first innings. In the second, he bowled less in a tight finish, but took two for 20 in 13 overs. And against Gloucestershire, after the home team had reached 332 for four in their first innings, his spell of four wickets for eight runs in ten overs (his overall figures were 28–10–48–4) helped to dismiss them for 359. When he took three for 98 in the second innings, he had taken 22 wickets for 292 runs in the first three games of his career at an average of 13.27. 

Ronald Lowe in 1923 at the time of his Surrey debut, aged seventeen (Image: Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 26 May 1923)

But after that came a drastic falling-off. His next game was his first at the Oval, and he was wicketless in a high-scoring game, bowling only 14 overs in Hampshire’s single innings. And he bowled only 14 overs in two innings against Gloucestershire in the return match at the Oval. He was then dropped for the following match, away to Nottinghamshire. The Weekly Dispatch, in a section of “Cricket Gossip” indicated this was on account of his poor fielding. The author suggested that it was good not to overexpose someone of his young age to county cricket and said that he would have plenty of time to improve his fielding, “if he shows perseverance”. Yet there might possibly have been more to this than met the eye.

When Surrey once more played away, at Leicester, Lowe bowled 18 overs in the first innings but was unused in the second, although it lasted 67 overs as Leicestershire batted out a draw with eight wickets down. No explanation was offered. Was it an injury? He certainly missed the next four games, although perhaps he had simply been dropped again. Or was something else going on? When he returned against Lancashire at Old Trafford, he bowled just 11 overs out of 86 and did not bowl in the brief second innings. He played in the next two games — away matches against Warwickshire and Yorkshire — but took just two wickets.

After those games in late June, he was dropped once more from the first team and played for the second eleven without a great deal of success. He returned for one final match at the start of August, playing against the touring West Indies team, but he was wicketless and expensive in a heavy loss. In his last seven games he had taken four wickets for 265 runs; he never played for the first team again. What had gone wrong? It was not unusual for a bowler to be ‘found out’ after an early success, or succumb to some combination of growing expectation, poor luck, flat pitches or superior opposition. But the contrast between his first three games and last seven was remarkable; and what had happened when he was apparently dropped despite his good form? The report on Surrey’s season in Wisden did not mention him, nor did the season review in The Cricketer. It might have been a consolation that in four appearances in the second team, Lowe had taken ten wickets at 17.80.

Lowe played three times for the second eleven in 1924 (taking two wickets for 86 runs) and once in 1925 (taking two for 55), but not only had he clearly lost any semblance of form, he had competition for a place in the first team. Surrey had not played a specialist spinner after Lowe had been dropped in 1923 but made another discovery in 1924. Stanley Fenley, an 28-year-old amateur who was on leave from his job working in what is today Ghana (but was then known as the Gold Coast), made his debut for Surrey as a leg-spinner. He was an immediate success, taking 84 first-class wickets at an average just under 20. As well as having the advantage over Lowe of not requiring a salary, the Surrey Committee (like that of many counties) tended to favour amateurs over professionals for reasons of class and social prestige. Although Fenley decided to turn professional (a relatively unusual career trajectory) for 1925, he was by then established in the team. While he never repeated the success of his debut year, he was a regular in the first team until 1926 and continued to play for Surrey until 1929.

After the 1925 season, Lowe was released by Surrey. Although still only twenty, his cricket career was effectively over. But he returned to the newspapers in 1926 in very unfortunate circumstances. On 15 July 1926, he was acting as the scorer in a game played on Mitcham Green between Mitcham Police and Mitcham Special Constabulary. One of the players left his wallet on a table in the scoring room of the pavilion where Lowe was keeping score, but returned to discover at the end of the match that £8 in notes had been taken from it. Lowe was the only possible suspect. Theft at a match between two police teams was hardly the cleverest course of action; a sergeant was called and Lowe was arrested. He handed over £8 16s 6d in notes and coins. The story made the Daily News, which reported than an anonymous “former member of the Surrey team” had been arrested

Appearing before Croydon County Bench the following day, Lowe said that he was working as an engineer, gave his address as Fair Green, Mitcham, and confirmed he was a former professional cricketer. He pleaded guilty, saying that he had “yielded to sudden temptation” because he had received an income tax bill that morning. He said that he was single, but “supported his mother”. The father of the man whose money was taken actually spoke in Lowe’s defence, saying that he blamed himself — he seems to have been the one who left the wallet in sight of Lowe for hours — and because Lowe was “probably not well off”, asked the bench to be lenient.

Given his previous good character, Lowe was bound over on probation for twelve months (for the sum of £10), after the sentencing magistrate had made some laboured remarks about how Lowe was old enough to know better, and how “he should known how to play the game, and it was not playing the game to take other people’s money.” The story was widely reported, and taken at face value looked to have been just another story of a professional cricketer fallen from grace. But there were other factors bubbling away unseen in the background.

Lowe’s father was still alive so why would Lowe have needed to support his mother? To understand what might have forced Lowe to attempt a clumsy theft, it is necessary to look more closely at his family circumstances. The electoral registers provide some answers. By Autumn 1922, Lowe’s mother was the only person listed at Commonside East (in other words, the only person registered to vote; her children would have been too young that year); her husband was not there. He had been present in the spring edition of the register, but it appears that he left his family shortly after June 1921 (when the census was taken and he still lived at Commonside). In September 1921, still working as a commercial traveller, Frederic William Lowe appeared before the Kingston Borough Bench after he was arrested for acting suspiciously, lurking at a junction. Although he refused to give a satisfactory explanation, his employers corroborated his story that he was visiting a particular house. But there are two interesting points: that he had an employer — on the 1921 census, he was self-employed — and that his address was 39 Trinity Road, Wimbledon, at a time when his family still lived at Commonside East.

The likely abandonment of the family by his father was not the only problem faced by Ronald Lowe, and circumstances at home might have had an adverse impact on his cricket career. On 26 May 1923, his older sister — the nurse — gave birth to a boy in Norwich, having travelled there especially to do so. As an unmarried mother, she gave her son away — whether through choice or otherwise — to nuns; he was adopted soon after. And very possibly we can trace the impact this had on Lowe. He had returned to the Surrey team to play at Leicester on 23 May (having been left out of the previous game); and it was on 25 May (the third and final day of the match) that he did not bowl in the long second innings before disappearing from the team for a fortnight. It could be a coincidence; but a more likely explanation might be that Lowe was summoned home because of a family crisis concerning his sister (of whom there is no obvious trace in later records).

To add to the mysterious picture, Frederick Lowe died in 1927, aged 55, at 39 Trinity Road, Wimbledon, Surrey — the same address he had given in September 1921. He left an estate worth just ten shillings, to be administered by his wife; he was buried in a common grave in Wimbledon. Did the family even know? When his oldest son, Frederick, married in 1931, he listed his father as “retired” rather than deceased. Or was he refusing to even acknowledge a man who had abandoned them? It is impossible to be sure. But if Ronald’s actions in the Mitcham Green pavilion in 1926 are any indication, the family faced considerable poverty by this time.

If these events help to explain how Lowe fell so quickly, little is known of what happened afterwards. We can pick up traces through the Surrey electoral registers. When his father died, Ronald Lowe apparently still lived with his mother but he had moved away by 1928. At this point, Wisden might offer some help. In 1961, a very brief obituary appeared in its pages, stating that Lowe “played as a slow left-arm bowler for Surrey Second XI before becoming a male nurse in 1926”. Although the inaccurate summary of Lowe’s career might not inspire confidence, he certainly became a nurse and that date is likely to be reasonably close to the time he did so. So he most likely left home for that reason.

The rest of his family can be traced for a few more years. Marie still lived at Commonside East in 1930, with at least two of her sons. By 1931 they had moved to Raleigh Gardens, where she was to be found with three sons — Frederick, Stanley and Geoffrey — and lived there until 1933. After that it is hard to be sure what happened. She was certainly no longer living with her sons; Stanley married in 1933, which could have had a bearing on what happened next.

Severalls Hospital in Colchester; photographed in 2010, when it had been closed for 12 years (Image: geograph.org.uk)

As for Ronald, the 1939 Register — taken on the outbreak of the Second World War — provides a few answers. By then, he had moved around 80 miles north-east of where he grew up; he lived in Colchester and was listed as a registered male “mental nurse” (which would today be termed a “mental health nurse”). He worked at Essex and Colchester Mental Hospital, known as Severalls, and lived on an estate of cottages on Mill Road, built specifically for married male nurses who worked at the hospital. He had married Mary Maude Phillips at Colchester in 1936. She was the daughter of a colliery engineer; her family were from Wales, and she grew up there, but she had been born in Birmingham. The 1921 census recorded her, at the age of 15, neither working nor in school, but her older sister was a ward maid at Cardiff Tuberculosis Hospital; she qualified as a registered nurse in 1931. The 1939 Register lists her, too, as a nurse; perhaps she and Ronald met working at Severalls.

There is much that could be said about mental hospitals in this period: many were brutal and inhumane, treating patients with little respect and often worsening their mental health, although small advances had begun to take place. But this is not really the place to do justice to such a subject. However, it is very possible that Lowe went into this profession as a result of his own personal experiences. Because the 1939 Register also records the location of his mother: Marie was “incapacitated”, a patient in Netherne Mental Hospital in Hooley, Surrey. When she died in 1963, she was a resident of Cane Hill Hospital in Croydon; the death certificate gave her causes of death as “pneumonia, hypertension and chronic schizophrenia”. She was 81 years old and had been institutionalised since at least 1939.

The questions mount up but cannot be answered. Was her illness triggered when her husband left her? Or did he leave her because of her mental illness? Did financial worries worsen it? Did her sons (including Ronald) take care of her until they were no longer able to do so? Is that why Ronald became a nurse?

Little else is known about Lowe or his family. Local newspapers record some of his continuing sporting feats; he played cricket and billiards for Severalls until at least 1939. As he worked in a reserved occupation as a mental health nurse, he was presumably not conscripted during the Second World War but continued to work as Severalls. Perhaps he was affected when the hospital was bombed in 1943. He and his wife never had children.

Lowe died at the age of 55 in 1960, in Essex County Hospital, Colchester, leaving an estate worth just under £600. He probably still worked at Severalls — he still lived in the area reserved for staff members. He was survived by his wife, two younger brothers and his mother (who died three years later).