Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

stay fit and continue playing a decent standard of Welsh rugby and cricket. The offer to work at Llandovery stemmed from a friendship with the school’s new Warden, the Rev Alfred George Edwards. The son of a clergyman from Merioneth, he had read Classics at Jesus College at the same time C.P. was in residence, and had played alongside him in the Jesus cricket eleven. Under Edwards’ energetic headship, Llandovery flourished with the number of pupils rising from just 27 in 1874 to over 180 by the 1880s. Edwards subsequently left the College to become the Vicar of Carmarthen: he was later a leading figure in the Church in Wales and eventually became the first Archbishop of Wales. By the time Edwards arrived at Llandovery, the influential W.P.Whittington had departed and there was a desperate need for an enthusiastic young master who could continue his good work, overseeing the sporting activities in the College and acting as a good role model. Edwards had already persuaded another good friend from his days at Jesus, Charles Buckmaster – who had graduated in 1874 with a first in Natural Sciences – to teach at Llandovery, and having seen the way C.P. had shown similar excellence on the sports fields at Oxford, Edwards knew that Lewis would perfectly fit the bill to give sport at Llandovery a further boost. To Edwards’ delight, his Oxford chum readily accepted the offer, with C.P. no doubt remembering how much he had enjoyed helping out with games at Gloucester Cathedral School. There was plenty for C.P. to do, as the standard of rugby and cricket had dipped following Whittington’s departure. Just a couple of months after C.P. started at Llandovery, the College suffered a heavy defeat in their rugby match against Swansea. The students conceded four tries and just to rub salt into the wounds, they could not put a full side into the field. However, this was the heaviest defeat for some time, as through C.P.’s guidance and coaching, he put his indelible mark on sport on at Llandovery, and with the number of students steadily rising, there were plenty of reserves to call upon. He also made an impact in other areas of school life and it was a mark of his standing as both a schoolmaster and role model that within a couple of years he was invited to run Trafalgar House, a recently-purchased house to accommodate the overflow of boys seeking to board at the College. In previous years, the College coped with an overflow in numbers by renting lodgings in the Schoolmaster at Llandovery College 45