Francis Hamilton Mellor (13 May 1854 – 26 April 1925) was an English judge and a

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

who played in first-class cricket matches for Cambridge University, Kent and the Marylebone Cricket Club between 1874 and 1878. He was born in Bloomsbury, London and died in Paris, France.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 382–383.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 7 August 2022.)

Career

Mellor was part of a distinguished legal family: his father was Sir John Mellor, a judge of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court and among his brothers

John William Mellor John William Mellor Privy Council of the United Kingdom, PC Deputy Lieutenant, DL Queen's Counsel, QC (26 July 1835 – 13 October 1911) was an England, English lawyer and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician. Born in London, the elde ...

was Judge Advocate General and a Member of Parliament who became Charman of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker. Another brother, Sir James Mellor, was Master of the Supreme Court, King's Remembrancer and King's Coroner, and the first registrar of the Court of Criminal Appeal; Frank Mellor was part author of a standard legal work on ''Crown Office Practice'' on which his brother James was cited by '' The Times'' as "probably the greatest living authority". His nephew, John Paget Mellor, who was John William's son, was Treasury Solicitor and was awarded a baronetcy. Frank Mellor was educated at Cheltenham College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Mellor followed the family tradition and became a lawyer: he was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1880 and then practised on the Northern Circuit. He served as a special pleader and was the

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Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

from 1898 to 1911; he was called as a

King's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

in 1903 and served as a

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judge in Manchester from 1911 to his death. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the

1918 New Year Honours The 1918 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Ja ...

. He died suddenly after an operation in Paris.

Cricket

He played as a right-handed middle-order batsman and an underarm slow bowler in the Cheltenham cricket team for three seasons and was tried as a lower-order batsman in a single match for the Cambridge University side in 1874, without success. He returned to the Cambridge first team in 1877 having not progressed beyond the trial matches in the intervening years, and scored 46, his highest in first-class cricket, in his first game back. Despite a modest batting record – and he did not bowl in first-class cricket – Mellor retained his place in the Cambridge eleven and played in the 1877 University Match, scoring 5 and 15 not out as Oxford won the game easily. Later in the 1877 season and also in 1878 he played a couple of games for Kent and he also appeared in 1878 in a match for the Marylebone Cricket Club: in none of these games did he achieve anything of note.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mellor, Frank 1854 births 1925 deaths English cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers People educated at Cheltenham College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge 20th-century King's Counsel 20th-century English judges Commanders of the Order of the British Empire County Court judges (England and Wales)