In today's From The Vaults article, Richard Steele looks at two rugby-playing legal giants of the 1920s- Harding and Aarvold.
In the second match in the 1928 Five Nations Championship on 28 January 1928 between Wales and England at St Helen's Swansea, two distinguished legal and sporting brains of the mid-twentieth century faced each other for the only time in their international rugby careers.
The captain of Wales that day - for the fourth time in his seventeenth and what turned out to be his final international - was the winger Rowe Harding (1901-1991). Born in Birchgrove, Swansea on 10 September 1901 and educated at Gowerton Grammar School, he made his debut for Swansea in 1920 and was the club's leading try scorer in the 1921-22 and 1922-23 seasons. This led to his first cap for Wales on the left wing against England at Twickenham in January 1923 where his opposite number was the record English try-scoring right wing Cyril Lowe in his final season of international rugby.
Harding played all four matches in the 1923 Championship and scored a try in the 16-8 victory over France on his home ground. On 1 November 1923 he played on the wing in the combined England and Wales team in the Centenary Match at Rugby School and he was chosen in the next season for Wales in the final two matches of the 1924 Championship against Ireland and France.
He toured South Africa with the British Isles touring party in the summer of 1924, playing in 14 of the 21 matches on tour and scored three tries. Although omitted from the team selected for the 1st test, he was picked on the left wing for the remaining three test matches. He described the tour as "a joyous adventure" in his book Rugby Reminiscences and Opinions published in 1929, but he was severely critical of the standard of the overall British side:
"The real reason for our failure was that we were not good enough to go abroad as representatives of the playing strength of these islands. It is not sufficient to send abroad some players of international standard and others who are only second class. Every member of the team must be absolutely first class, or disaster is bound to overtake it."
At the end of the tour Rowe Harding went to study law at Pembroke College, Cambridge University in October 1924 and he played for Cambridge against Oxford University at Twickenham two months later, the first of his four varsity matches. He scored a try in the 1926 and 1927 matches and captained the University in his final match in December 1927. Throughout his time at Cambridge, he played regularly for Wales for whom he scored five tries in his 17 internationals.
A future vice-president of the Welsh Rugby Union, he retired from rugby after qualifying as a barrister and subsequently became a county court judge and President of Glamorgan County Cricket Club.
In October 1925 Carl Douglas Aarvold (1907-1991) arrived at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University fresh from Durham School to study law. He made an immediate impression on the rugby field as a dangerous centre with a lethal break, but he had to wait until November before playing alongside Rowe Harding who was recovering from a leg injury sustained on his return from the South African rugby tour.
In his first varsity match against Oxford University at Twickenham on 10 December 1925, Aarvold played left centre alongside Rowe Harding on the wing and scored one of Cambridge's nine tries in an overwhelming 33-3 victory. The pair were to play together many times for their university over the next three years.
Pictured here is the 1927 Cambridge University rugby team. Aarvold is seated on the far left with Harding seated centre.
Aarvold's versatility saw him play in different positions in four consecutive varsity matches - appearing twice at centre, once at full back and once on the wing - scoring three tries in all. He succeeded Harding as Cambridge captain in December 1928, having made his debut for England against New South Wales at the beginning of that year. Aarvold's second cap against Wales in January 1928 was to be Harding's final cap.
Aarvold too would captain his country and become a British Lion. He toured as an uncapped player with the Lions to Argentina in 1927 and played in all four tests on the wing, scoring eight tries in the four victorious tests against a weak Argentina team. He played with greater distinction for the British Isles in five tests in New Zealand and Australia in 1930, three as captain. Scorer of three tries in his four tests against the All Blacks, he was regarded as one of the finest three-quarters to have toured New Zealand. In his book of the tour, the former All Black forward GT Alley described Aarvold as "one of the most attractive players that has visited New Zealand" and noted that he "scored sensational tries in the second and third tests".
After leaving Cambridge, Aarvold played club rugby for Headingley and Blackheath and county rugby for Durham captaining his home county in the 1932 County Championship Final. He played 16 times for England between 1928 and 1933, scoring four tries and captaining his country in his last seven internationals. Equally at home on the wing and in the centre, he scored fifteen tries in total in his international career for England and the British Lions in tests in Argentina and New Zealand.
He qualified as a barrister in 1932 and, after serving in the Royal Artillery in World War Two, developed a lengthy and distinguished legal career. He became the Recorder of Pontefract in 1952 before serving as a circuit judge culminating in his appointment in 1964 as Recorder of London, the senior circuit judge at the Old Bailey. He was knighted in 1968 and retired from the bar in 1975.
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A professional musician and arts administrator, Richard Steele has been on the committee of the World Rugby Museum at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham since 2005 and is the co-author of the RFU's 150th anniversary book England Rugby 150 Years.
