"St. David's College, Lampeter, (now the University of Wales, Lampeter) was founded in 1822 and opened to students in 1827. It is the oldest degree-awarding institution of higher education in England and Wales after Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1823, at Rugby School in Warwickshire, William Webb Ellis, with a fine disregard of the rules of football as then played, picked up the ball and ran with it, thus founding the distinctive handling game.
It must have taken some time for the handling game at Rugby to become more refined, but their code was then spread by old boys of the School. This was particularly the case at Cambridge University where a Rugby Football Club was founded in 1839. The game was then spread by the graduates of Cambridge University during the 1840's.
The Revd. Dr. Rowland Williams, who attended Cambridge at that time, and was a keen sportsman, became the Vice-Principal of St. David's College, Lampeter, in 1850.
He introduced the Rugby Code to the students at Lampeter, as well as cricket and croquet. Thus Lampeter must surely be where the Rugby Code was first played in Wales.
Also, as there were very few other institutions of higher education in Wales, and bearing in mind the poor communications at that time, it is highly likely that the College asked the young men of the town to make up a team to play them.
This could be as early as 1852-53, making the Town team in Lampeter the oldest non-accademic Rugby Club in Wales.
However, this cannot be proved, as our records only go back to 1875.
Lampeter, College or Town or both, the records aren't clear, was present at the Castle Hotel in Neath in 1881 and are founder members of the Welsh Rugby Union.
Through the work of Rowland Williams, however, Lampeter can rightly claim to be the first place in Wales where Rugby Football was played."
Article written by Selwyn Walters
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your comments
Margaret Jones-Cardiff
I read, with interest, the comment about St Davids' Theological college, and its early connection with the game of rugby.Both my brothers were students at the college during the late 1940's and early 1950's.They were members of the College team(during one period of time they both played in the same team They were both actively involved in the game when they became curates in their various parishes-- Llanelli being one of them. The Town/Gown rugby game was always an enjoyable event for my father and the two brothers .However,even though.my father,also an ex St. Davids' College student,was a keen supporter of rugby, he,as a student,played hockey!Thank you Selwyn, for taking me back in time-to the Good Old Days!
Mon Oct 12 09:21:18 2009
Phil Gilbank, Pocklington
If the history of my club, Pocklington in East Yorkshire, is anything to go by then Lampeter old boys also played an important part in spreading the game as they left Lampeter to become schoolmasters and/or clergymen across the globe.WHA Walters captained Lampeter in 1874 and arrived in Pocklington in 1879 to teach at its public school. He immediately organized a rugby match between town and school and we have been playing rugby here ever since.
Mon Oct 22 08:07:31 2007
Howell from Dorset
My GGF William Morgan Howell (WH) was certainly present at the Castle Hotel proceedings in 1881, clearly enough representing town side of Llanelly. He was born in 1837. I really do think that the claims made above, whilst giving plenty of encouragement to Lampeter and Llandovery, and whilst enjoyable to speculate upon, are in reality taking a rise out of Llanelly Grammar School and the town side too! Could they possibly do that?! I don't apologise for saying it. The fact that Rowland Williams brought the game from Cambridge may not be particularly relevant, since it was the London Hospital and Old Boys sides which made the running (and the kicking)in the game in the early years. The conclusive evidence would be the date of foundation of the Barts and Guy's sides and also when it was played first at Merchant Taylor's School, and Dr Alleyne's school at Dulwich, compared with the date at which the said Rowland Williams brought the game to Lampeter. Does it matter when the game provides so much excellent healthy exercice and companionship to so many throughout the world today?
Sun Sep 23 09:47:07 2007
Gareth Howell from Dorset
All this is much earlier than the foundation of Llanelly football club for example. The honors board of Chairmen/Presidents of the club only goes back to about 1860;my greatgrandfather being one. His father,my gggf,a guiding light of Llanelly of the day, was an undergraduate medical student at Guy's Hospital. He was at college in 1820-1825, so between the two of them, they would certainly have been present at any inaugural proceedings, in the 1850s-60s.The London hospitals, which our good friend JPR attended, were, as well as the Old boy clubs ,the first players of the game, in the English capital. Merchant Taylor (OMT)Dr. Alleyne's at Dulwich (OA, Old Alleynians), are names of the first school sides,along with Guy's and Barts.I'm sorry I can't ask him! Thomas Lewis Howell of Llanelli Athenaeum b1799, was almost certainly involved. I don't know whether it was played first at schools in London or by those schools' Old Boys as a get together first. It was always considered as a business enterprise despite the amateur code, and the OLD boys clubs were considered to have the most potential for the future; until the 1950s they did.I am surprised the Welsh Rugby Union Museumdoes not have it on record.
Wed Sep 19 13:08:13 2007
Tony Parker, Telford
There can be absolutely no doubt about this. My evidence - I was in college in Lampeter from 1970-74 and played for the college and for Lampeter Town (and for Llanybydder on a few occasions). All these games were extremely crude variants of the game and this thus supports the above contention since it shows that the original crude version continued almost unchanged over 100 years later. The crudest versions were the annual match between Lampeter Town and Gown (Lampeter College) when the locals enjoyed chewing up and spitting out us students while occasionally letting us have the ball in order to smash into us and drive us deep into the mud on the way to the try-line. This always contrasted with the warmth of the welcome in the Lampeter clubhouse afterwards.
Sun Mar 11 11:03:56 2007
Tim Butten, Lampeter
Professor H A Harris suggests the FIRST game of "rugby" played in Wales was in 1856 between Lampeter College & Llandovery College. This probably more likely than a game in Lampeter between town & gown.
The game,as previously stated, would have been a crude version probably 12 a side and perhaps played somwhere between Lampeter & Llandovery i.e. half way between the two towns. The talk is, that it was played in Caio, and when local farm hands saw the game they all joined in.
All said and done it probably was Rowland Williams who first brought the game to Wales
Fri Jan 26 19:08:03 2007
Tim Butten, Lampeter
There can be little dispute on this. It was possibly a crude variant of the game being played at Rugby school or even the Oxbridge colleges. Lampeter College did start playing Llandovery College in the 1860s and so the game was being played elswhere but probaly not as early as the 1850s.
Llandovery College played in the first proper tournament between clubs in 1877, 4 years before the WRU was formed.
Fri Jan 26 10:56:15 2007
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