Mr Thomas Bland Davies
President 1899/1900
Mr Davies’ role as president of the Carmarthen Wanderers Football Club was reported in an edition of the Welshman in 1899. He was a very prominent member of the Traders and Merchants in Carmarthen. He was a coal and lime merchant and also director of Priory Foundry (1905). Mr Davies was a local magistrate and chairman of the Ratepayers Association. He was known to be residing in Quay Street in 1902.
Mr Davies was a huge supporter of local charities including the Carmarthen Town Sports and Attractions Committee. He raised a substantial amount of funds for veterans of the Boer War and supported the setting up of a Sanatorium in the area. He lost at least four of his children during his lifetime including three in one year (1919) possibly from the Spanish Flu.
In 1905, the Sports Attractions Committee held a dinner in his honour at the Boars Head Hotel. This was the year the Committee was dissolved but thousands of people had been attracted to the town by the events put on by them with Mr Davies regarded by everyone as the main driving force behind this success. Mr Davies died in September 1922.
I have been unable to establish if Mr Davies had acted as the club’s president for more than one season.
Research carried out by Sheldon Phillips and Mary Thorley