Regional Skrimshire

Background

Skrimshire was born in Crickhowell in 1878, and educated at Monmouth School.

Career

Employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he built railways and bridges in the former British Empire, his most notable work being the railway from Johannesburg to the Victoria Falls, including the famous bridge over the falls. He died at Swan Dean Hospital in High Salvington, England in 1963. After playing his early rugby with Blaenavon he moved to first class side Newport.

He made his Newport debut against English side Moseley in 1897, and in his first season scored 16 tries in 24 matches, a good return for a centre.

Skrimshire was regarded as a fast and agile runner who had a cool head and good positional ability, though he was noted as being greedy with the ball and needed to release more to his wing players. Skrimshire was first selected for Wales against England on the 9 January 1899 at Street Helens in front of a Welsh record crowd of 20,000.

Wales ran out comfortable winners and Skrimshire was back in the team for the Scotland game two months later. Although Wales lost the match against Scotland, he retained his place for the final game of the 1899 tournament against Ireland.

lieutenant would be Skrimshire"s last match for Wales.

In 1903 Skrimshire was selected for Mark Morrison"s British Isles team to South Africa. Skrimshire was the only Welsh representative but integrated well and played in all but one of the 22 matches including all three tests against the South African team Skrimshire was the only threequarter to have improved his reputation during the tour and scored an excellent try in the first test at Johannesburg.

He finished the tour as the team"s highest scorer and would later move to South Africa and played for Western Province.

International matches played

Wales

England 1899

Scotland 1899

Ireland 1899

British Isles

South Africa 1903, 1903, 1903.

Achievements

• He won three caps for Wales and was the only Welsh representative on the 1903 British Isles tour. Ireland won the a much disrupted game, caused by crowd trouble, and took the Triple Crown.