Patrick Mermagen
Personal information
Full name
Patrick Hassell Frederick Mermagen
Born(1911-05-08)8 May 1911
Colyton, Devon, England
Died20 December 1984(1984-12-20) (aged 73)
Ipswich, Suffolk, England
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm fast-medium
RoleBatsman
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1930Somerset
First-class debut6 August 1930 Somerset v Essex
Last First-class2 September 1930 Somerset v Hampshire
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 8
Runs scored 114
Batting average 11.40
100s/50s –/–
Top score 35
Balls bowled 30
Wickets –
Bowling average –
5 wickets in innings –
10 wickets in match –
Best bowling –
Catches/stumpings 4/–
Source: CricketArchive, 13 November 2013

Patrick Hassell Frederick Mermagen (8 May 1911, Colyton, Devon – 20 December 1984 Ipswich, Suffolk) was a public school teacher and cricketer[1] who played eight first-class matches for Somerset in 1930.[2]

Life and career

Patrick Mermagen was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset, southern England, where he was in the same year group as Alan Turing and Christopher Morcom.[3] All three were mathematically able.[4] An outstanding batsman for Sherborne, Mermagen was picked to play for the Public Schools side in the annual match against The Army at Lord's on 6 and 7 August 1930. But after the Army had batted on the Wednesday, rain set in and the match was abandoned.[5]

Somerset's three-day game with Essex from 6 to 8 August was affected even earlier by the weather, and no play was possible on the Wednesday and the Thursday: when it finally began on the Friday, Mermagen had been inserted into the Somerset side and batted at No 4.[6] Mermagen retained his place in the Somerset side for the rest of the season without making much impact: his highest score was only 35 and that came in his last innings, when Somerset scored 545 for nine declared against Hampshire at Taunton.[7] He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler, though he bowled only five overs in first-class cricket, without success.

Mermagen went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1930 to study Mathematics, but did not play cricket for the university side. After graduating he spent six years as Assistant Master at Loretto School in Scotland, then served with the Royal Berkshire Regiment during World War II. After the war, he was Assistant Master at Radley College (1940–1950) and then headmaster of Ipswich School (1950–1972). Mermagen maintained contact with Alan Turing as a schoolmaster, via letter.[8]

Patrick Mermagen died in 1984.[9] He had married Neva Sonia James in 1934; they had a daughter and three sons, one of whom died in an air crash.[10] He later married Inge Schütt in 1965 and they had a son and a daughter.

References

  1. ↑ "Patrick Mermagen". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  2. ↑ "Patrick Mermagen". ESPN cricinfo. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  3. ↑ Hodges, Andrew (1983). Alan Turing: The Enigma. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 37, 52, 362. ISBN 978-0-671-49207-6.
  4. ↑ Eperson, Canon D. B. (May 1994). "Educating a Mathematical Genius: Alan Turing at Sherborne School" (PDF). Mathematics in School. 23 (3): 44–45. JSTOR.
  5. ↑ "Army v Public Schools". www.cricketarchive.com. 6 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  6. ↑ "Somerset v Essex". www.cricketarchive.com. 6 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  7. ↑ "Somerset v Hampshire". www.cricketarchive.com. 30 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
  8. ↑ "AMT/D/14: 1 ALS to P.H.F. Mermagen (contemporary at Sherborne, d. 1985). n.d. [c. 1947] (Hodges, pp.362–3)". Turing Digital Archive. King's College Archive Centre, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  9. ↑ Wisden 1985, p. 1196.
  10. ↑ Hassall, Rachel (14 June 2016). "Mermagen, Timothy Francis Haughton (1938–1965)". Sherborne School Archives. Flickr. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.