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]
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Patrick Hassell Frederick Mermagen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 8 May 1911 Colyton, Devon, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 20 December 1984 (aged 73) Ipswich, Suffolk, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast-medium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1930 | Somerset | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First-class debut | 6 August 1930 Somerset v Essex | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last First-class | 2 September 1930 Somerset v Hampshire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source: CricketArchive, 13 November 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Life and career
editPatrick 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]
References
edit- ^ "Patrick Mermagen". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
- ^ "Patrick Mermagen". ESPN cricinfo. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
- ^ Hodges, Andrew (1983). Alan Turing: The Enigma. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 37, 52, 362. ISBN 978-0-671-49207-6.
- ^ Eperson, Canon D. B. (May 1994). "Educating a Mathematical Genius: Alan Turing at Sherborne School" (PDF). Mathematics in School. 23 (3): 44–45. JSTOR.
- ^ "Army v Public Schools". www.cricketarchive.com. 6 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
- ^ "Somerset v Essex". www.cricketarchive.com. 6 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
- ^ "Somerset v Hampshire". www.cricketarchive.com. 30 August 1930. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
- ^ "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.
- ^ Wisden 1985, p. 1196.
- ^ Hassall, Rachel (14 June 2016). "Mermagen, Timothy Francis Haughton (1938–1965)". Sherborne School Archives. Flickr. Retrieved 9 January 2018.