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Bishop Havard - A remarkable Welshman
11/15/2011 1:30:36 PM
Swansea City have become the first Welsh team ever to play in the Premier League. Having found goals hard to come by this season, they may be tempted to look back to the man who scored their first ever goal. Who knows? He may be able to provide some divine assistance.
Swansea Town, as it then was, did not begin as a club until 1912, when it joined the second division of the Southern League. Its first ever match was a reserve fixture against Merthyr Tydfil in September of that year, and its first goal was scored by Bill Havard, a 22 year-old who had just graduated from Aberystwyth University. Nothing too remarkable about that, you may think, except that the same William Thomas Havard, seven years later, was capped by Wales at rugby as a prop forward, not a normal position for nippy soccer goal-scorers!
In the intervening years, William Havard had gained his rugby blue while attending Jesus College, Oxford University, served in World War I with distinction (a Military Cross and DSO) and played for Llanelli and London Welsh. Even more remarkably, he then embarked on a career in the Church in Wales, eventually serving sixteen years as Bishop of St Asaph before reaching the pinnacle as Bishop of St David’s. He had been in that position for six years when he died at the age of 66 in 1956.
Bishop Havard was born in Breconshire and preached in both Welsh and English. His powerful sermons on the Sunday before the Welsh National Eisteddfod were often broadcast across the nation. He was a Select Preacher at Canterbury Cathedral and a visiting lecturer at Yale University.
William’s granddaughter, Sukie Southern, lives in Newport on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. A talented athlete, Sukie won two gold medals and one silver at the World Masters Games in Sydney two years ago, and is a current Australian Masters champion. Though she never met her famous grandfather, she and the rest of her family are keenly aware of his heritage.
For visitors to Wales, there is every reason to walk in Bishop Havard’s footsteps. The Havard Family Chapel, in Brecon Cathedral, is a must-see. It holds the memorials to the two world wars and the Battle of Rorke’s Drift (mythologised in the film Zulu) at which 11 Victoria Crosses were won. St David’s Cathedral is another natural tourist destination; in St David’s own day three pilgrimages there were worth one to Jerusalem, and the Pembrokeshire Coast was last year rated the second best in the whole world.
- Clive Woosnam