Over the holiday period we had an email from Guy Hayward in South Africa who recently found a Bradfield College trophy dated 1886 which had been awarded to his great-grandfather, Charles Percivale Bligh Wall. Charles joined Bradfield in January 1885 and left in July 1890. He won the trophy in 1886 for the Junior Steeplechase cross country run and in October 1889 he is listed in the Bradfield Chronicle as being the Vice President of the Debating Society. He was also in the College Shooting Eight from 1889-1890, known as Sergeant Wall in the Combined Cadet Force and a School Prefect in 1890.

After Bradfield Charles went to Edinburgh University to study medicine in the UK until 1897 before setting up in private practice in South Africa where he was a Radiologist.  He was a Surgeon Captain during the South African War and Mentioned In Despatches (MID). He also fought with the British military in East Africa in the First World War in the Union Defence Force and again was MID and later given an OBE. He retired from the military as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1920. Guy also shared a photograph of him meeting Field Marshall Montgomery in the 1950s in South Africa. Charles sadly lost his left arm from too much exposure to x-rays in the days before the harm from this was fully understood.

The 1886 Junior Steeplechase trophy is really quite an unusual wooden piece and quite large as shown below in comparison to the mug.

Charles also had a brother at Bradfield called Reginald Cecil Bligh Wall who came to Bradfield in May 1883 and left in July 1889. He was also in the Shooting VIII and a Captain from 1886-9 as well as being a Senior Prefect. Reginald won the Spencer Cup at Wimbledon in 1888 as part of the Bradfield College Royal Voluntary Corps and donated it to the College 50 years later in 1938. He remained in the UK and also became a member of the Bradfield College Council later in his life. The College plans to bring this trophy back into use in 2026.

You can see this trophy and its inscriptions below: