Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

His decision to leave Llandovery College in 1883 – at a time when he was leading the Welsh rugby team and playing cricket for the South Wales club – is one of several quite interesting dimensions to his adult life, and sports historians have often wondered what his motives were. Another question is: ‘Why did Lewis not involve himself with the Glamorgan county club when it was formed in 1888?’ This was just a couple of years after the winding up of the South Wales C.C. for whom he had been a leading figure, with a wide range of contacts. His county cricket until then had been for Breconshire, just a few miles to the north-east of Llandovery, or for Carmarthenshire. Either or even both of these county sides might have contributed to the ‘All Wales’ side which Glamorgan eventually became in the twentieth century, with the south-east of Wales holding the commercial and political power for a county club to last and thrive . Indeed, there were few people in sporting circles in Wales, and beyond, in the 1880s who had not heard of C.P.Lewis, who by then was still a bachelor in his mid-thirties, and seemingly a fine catch for a young lady. Yet it was not until 1892, when back in Llandovery and in line to be the town’s Mayor, that C.P. got married – at the age of 39 – to a lady eight years his senior. This book seeks to find answers to some of these questions about the life and times of C.P.Lewis, and attempts to set the record straight about one of the earliest leading cricketers and sporting personalities in Wales, paying tribute to his many outstanding and varied achievements. Introduction 10 Llandovery College when Lewis taught at the school.