Chairing Ross after Llandovery 1905

As school cricket fixtures come to a close at the end of a highly successful 2025 season, this month’s Throwback Thursday photograph takes us back exactly 120 years.

Photographed by a pupil, a moment of school life is seen from their unique perspective. The location on the pitches is familiar, even if the Eton collars and knickerbockers tell of a very different time. Unusually, we know exactly when the photograph was taken. The title, “Chairing Ross after Llandov. 1905” is perhaps puzzling to most modern viewers and needs explanation.  

“Ross” is H S Ross (School House 1900-1905), who played for the First XV and captained the First Cricket XI. In 1905 he led the team to win 9 of the season’s 13 matches, including against Llandovery.   

In the previous year, a “sensational” collapse of the Brecon batsmen had led to Llandovery winning by 15 runs. In 1905, the ‘Brecon County Times’ reported the “handsome revenge” taken by the Brecon side in an "easy win" by 33 runs on Monday 3 July.  

Traditionally the captain of a side that conquered Llandovery was loaded into a “barrow” (a handcart) ‘borrowed’ from “Billy Morris”, the tobacconist and grocer whose shop was directly opposite the school entrance. The ceremony, known as “chairing”, took place at the end of the match. Look more closely and you will see the huddle of players gathering up their captain in readiness for loading him into the barrow.  

The procession wasn’t just seen in school. The ‘Radnor Express’ tells us that the excitement and enthusiasm of 1905 crowd “reached a high watermark when the captain was carted through the town in the evening by his cheering schoolfellows.” The ‘Brecon County Times’ gives us a rather noisier picture:

An amusing feature of the School cricket match at Brecon on Monday was the silent gathering of the boys around the captain of the home team as the time for the drawing of stumps drew nigh and it was seen that the Christ College eleven must win. Ross, who was reclining on the grass, looked up eventually to find himself completely surrounded, and a quiet attempt to walk out of the crowd was vigorously prevented. He watched the concluding overs of the game through a forest of legs, the while Harries, the hero of the attack in the first innings, straddled across his body in the determination to make sure that he should not escape the penalty of fame. The last ball having been bowled, Ross was hoisted on to the shoulders of three or four colleagues, and hauled bodily to the grocery stores opposite the College entrance where a truck is always handy on such occasions. Of the subsequent stampede through the town to the accompaniment of ear-splitting blasts on a motor horn and shouts of victory, townspeople will not require to be enlightened.

Remarkably, the photograph taken on the pitches is accompanied in its album by one that was taken before the procession continued into town.

The location of this photograph is more familiar than is immediately obvious. The doorway covered in ivy is the entrance into Chapel Yard. The view along the west wall of the Chapel leads towards the pitches beyond. The girls dressed in white in the background are standing in front of the library building.

A closer look reveals the genuine euphoria of the procession as it celebrates the 1905 home win against ‘the old enemy’. Watched by bemused onlookers and urged on by excited pupils, the players - still in their whites - haul the chaired captain in victory. The photograph exudes the energy only hinted at in the one taken on the pitches. 120 years later, we can feel the elation as much as we can sense the discomfort of the team captain being bumped across those cobbles. And if you look really closely, you might even hear chants of triumph echoing across the Quad and across the centuries.