{"id":460,"date":"2016-08-26T08:23:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T08:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/?p=460"},"modified":"2022-04-13T14:06:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:06:50","slug":"serendipitous-discoveries-a-vignette-of-percy-bush-early-c20th-welsh-rugby-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/serendipitous-discoveries-a-vignette-of-percy-bush-early-c20th-welsh-rugby-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Serendipitous discoveries: a vignette of Percy Bush, early C20th Welsh rugby player"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a meeting\u00a0on Monday\u00a0morning I mentioned\u00a0the\u00a0delight of serendipitous finds in archives; how you can often just pull something off the shelves and discover an intriguing story or fact.\u00a0 I hadn’t realised it then but, by a strange coincidence, that is exactly what happened to me earlier in the day when I had a few spare minutes\u00a0 in the Archives store.\u00a0 I noticed an early 20th<\/sup> century minute book from the Teacher Training Department of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) and had a quick look through it to see what sort of information it held.\u00a0 There was a typescript letter stuck into the volume from\u00a0the father of a student\u00a0to the Board of Education in Whitehall asking for special consideration for his son\u2019s return to the College.\u00a0 Apparently Percy had been away on a rugby tour of Australia and New Zealand for several months \u2013 in 1904 of course they had to spend weeks travelling by sea. \u00a0The letter explains that the family doctor had recommended the tour because “[Percy\u2019s] nervous system was not what it should be\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He was\u00a0now quite recovered,\u00a0however,\u00a0and able to pick up his studies again.<\/p>\n

I thought this was a good example of the kind of\u00a0information\u00a0recorded in the minutes so took a couple of photos of the letter.\u00a0 When I looked at it in more detail later on I realised that the father was James Bush, the founder and headmaster of the School of Art in Cardiff (later part of Cardiff Technical School\/College, one of Cardiff University\u2019s predecessor institutions).\u00a0 I did a Google search for James\u2019 son and discovered that Percy Frank Bush was an internationally renowned rugby player and cricketer.\u00a0 He played rugby for Cardiff (very successfully)\u00a0and cricket for Glamorgan (a little less successfully).<\/p>\n

This letter –\u00a0read completely by\u00a0chance – adds to our understanding of Percy\u2019s life and provides a poignant background to his glittering sporting career.\u00a0 Despite his outstanding success on the rugby field he struggled with his health and his\u00a0education for a time before going on to work\u00a0as a teacher at Wood Street School in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

It shows how valuable it can be to simply\u00a0browse through primary sources without any particular aim or purpose.\u00a0 Having the time to do this in a world of pressure may be a luxury but the spare 5 minutes I had this morning brought to light a very human story.\u00a0 Even records that are catalogued can\u2019t all be fully indexed and a lot of information\u00a0is only\u00a0found by painstakingly plodding through – or randomly opening! – a volume or a box.\u00a0 In a world where so much is indexed or discoverable by a Google search, it\u2019s good to know there is still plenty left to reveal!<\/p>\n

Further information about Percy\u00a0Bush can be found\u00a0at: http:\/\/yba.llgc.org.uk\/en\/s2-BUSH-FRA-1879.html<\/a> and http:\/\/www.cardiffrfc.com\/Teams\/Player?personid=100814<\/a><\/p>\n

Some personal papers of the family are held at Glamorgan Record Office: http:\/\/calmview.cardiff.gov.uk\/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=D534&pos=7<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_0906\"<\/a>\u00a0\"IMG_0907\"<\/a><\/figure>\n
\"IMG_0908\"<\/a>
Letter from James Bush to the Board of Education, 1904 [CL.CM\/DEM.sch\/M\/1]<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Percy<\/a>
Percy Bush’s entry in the General Register of Men Students No 1 – Normal Department [Ref.: UCC\/R\/AC\/REG\/DTC\/1].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a meeting\u00a0on Monday\u00a0morning I mentioned\u00a0the\u00a0delight of serendipitous finds in archives; how you can often just pull something off the shelves and discover an intriguing story or fact.\u00a0 I hadn't […]","protected":false},"author":724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-institutionalarchive","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WM6Y-7q","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}