Richard Arthur Henry Mitchell (22 January 1843 - 19 April 1905), widely known as Mike Mitchell, was an English schoolmaster and amateur

cricket 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 ...

er who played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

from 1861 to 1883 and supervised the

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

cricket team for more than thirty years.

Life

Mitchell was educated at Eton and played for the school cricket team from 1858 to 1861, being captain in the latter year. From Eton he went to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

to read modern history. As a cricketer he won a

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

in all four years at the university, and was the Oxford captain for all but his first year. While he was in his third year at Balliol, his father suffered financial ruin, and Mitchell had the unexpected task of finding a livelihood. He switched courses from history to

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and secured a second-class honours degree which enabled him to gain appointment as a master at Eton in 1866, remaining there until compelled by ill-health to retire in 1901."Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell", ''The Times'', 20 April 1905, p. 8 Between 1866 and 1897 he was the principal adviser and coach of the school's cricket team. He was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Committee from 1902 until his death three years later. A later Eton master, G. W. Lyttleton, who as a schoolboy had played cricket under Mitchell's supervision, considered him a philistine housemaster: "unless you were a dab at some game you cut no ice". Among Mitchell's Etonian protégés was George Harris, who as Lord Harris became one of the most influential of cricket administrators.Birley
unnumbered page
/ref> Mitchell married Mary Henrietta Ley, the second daughter of Henry Ley,

Clerk of the House of Commons The Clerk of the House of Commons is the chief executive of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and before 1707 of the House of Commons of England. The formal name for the position held by the Clerk of the House of Comm ...

. Mitchell was the father of the courtier and cricketer Sir Frank Mitchell.

Career

Mitchell was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

, occasional

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

and right arm medium pace

roundarm In cricket, roundarm bowling is a bowling style that was introduced in the first quarter of the 19th century and largely superseded underarm bowling by the 1830s. Using a roundarm action, the bowlers extend their arm about 90 degrees from their ...

bowler. Mainly associated with the Eton Ramblers,

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC), he made 57 known appearances in first-class matches.CricketArchive
Retrieved on 17 November 2008. He played for the Gentlemen in the

Gentlemen v Players Gentlemen v Players was a long-running series of English first-class cricket matches. Two matches were played in 1806, but the fixture was not played again until 1819. It became an annual event, usually played at least twice each season, exc ...

series. He was regarded by Haygarth as one of the leading players of his era. After leaving Oxford, he usually was only seen in important cricket at the

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

Festival where he made 21 appearances up to 1883.

Notes

References

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External links

CricketArchive profile

Life

Career

Notes

References

External links

Further reading