St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Five
Transcript:
This is part five of the audio trail on David ‘Dai’ Samuel. Each object in this trail is on permanent display at St Helen’s. This particular object is, for all intents and purposes, a small photograph. It perhaps has a greater use than those photographs previously explored in this trail however. It is, more correctly, a ‘magic lantern’ slide. A precursor to the slide projectors that become widespread in the 1950’s, the magic lantern was popular for both education and entertainment as early as the 1700’s. They fell out of popularity by the 1890’s with the introduction of primitive films.
This slide itself is labelled ‘Feb 1891’ and ‘Torquay v. Swansea’. We know the game was played at the Torquay ground on Monday 16th February 1891, some way into what would become the back to back champion season for the Swansea side. This match was the second in Swansea’s traditional West Country Tour, the first being a win over Exeter. Swansea would win the match by 3 goals, 4 tries and 11 minors to a dropped goal by the home side, 20 points to 3. Swansea are clearly in white, whilst Torquay Athletic in black and likely a white diagonal stripe.
In the image, a scrum is taking place and we can recognise at the back of the scrum the figure of David James, his brother Evan awaits delivery of the ball. A player in the Torquay front row appears to have succumbed to pressure and has ‘popped out’ of the scrum. A referee in city clothes looks on from the side for infringements and a good sized crowd lines the ropes in the background. Both Dai and Jack Samuel are in the powerful Swansea scrum, pushing back their opponents, though no faces are visible, all the forwards bent into their work.
Unfortunately, today the slide’s glass is cracked. Whilst it has thankfully done little to affect the real contents of the image, work at the archive has restored the image and brightened it slightly. You can find both the original, and the restored version on this page.
This trail continues with further objects documenting the back to back champion seasons. Please don’t forget to press next to follow on to the next entry.