18 Mar 2016 | Cricket
Activities by staff and pupils at Christ College, Brecon in remembering their pupils who died during the Great War has helped Glamorgan County Cricket Club discover more about a former player who was previously unknown. During the course of the past few years, the Brecon school has been undertaking work commemorating their former pupils who died during World War One. In all, 64 Breconians gave their life for King and Country, including David Cuthbert Thomas (seen second left on the image), who was killed aged 20 on March 18th, 1916 whilst serving with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
'Tommy' Thomas was a talented young sportsman, who played rugby, hockey and cricket for Christ College and the son of the vicar of Llanedi duly came to the attention of the Glamorgan selectors during the summer of 1914.
It was certainly known in his family that Tommy was a cricketer of some promise, and he was known to have played for Glamorgan in 1914 in what was his final summer whilst at Brecon, said Felicity Kilpatrick, the school's Archivist. Whilst undertaking the research for our World War One project, we contacted Glamorgan Cricket to see if they knew anything about Tommy's appearance. Andrew Hignell, their record-keeper and Museum curator, confirmed that someone called Thomas played for the Gentlemen of Glamorgan against the Gentlemen of Carmarthenshire in July 1914, but that no other details were known about his identity. It appears that this may have been Tommy.
Shortly after the match in 1914, 'Tommy' joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and subsequently became the friend of war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. To commemorate the centenary of his death on March 18th, 1916 Christ College have released a previously unpublished photograph of the young cricketer, taken at the St. Helen's ground in 1914, when the school's 1st XI met Swansea Cricket Club's Wednesday XI. The image, taken just weeks before the start of hostilities on the Western Front, is part of a collection of images and documents held in the Christ College Archives, and shows Tommy standing second left.
We have been very fortunate that his family has retained contact with his old school, said Mrs. Kilpatrick, and his great-niece, Anne Penton-Marsh, has undertaken some detailed research. Anne's father, David Lloyd, was an Old Breconian himself and we were very privileged to welcome him back to the school during 2015. Sadly, he died very recently but not before his family gave a poetry prize, in Tommy's name to be awarded each year, so his life at Christ College - and now as a county cricketer - will be known to pupils in the future.