Michael Roberts
St. Peters College in Adelaide is an elite boys public school that has produced several Prime Ministers of South Australia and schooled many prominent figures in Australian life. The school’s cricket team chose to tour Ceylon in the month of January 1928 and played matches against Royal College, S. Thomas’ College and Trinity; and also against a team of planters at the grounds in Darrawella in the hill country.
The scoring book is part of the school archives and so too a photograph of the whole squad intermingled with the Thomian squad. This picture can be considered a “treasure” because of the personnel embraced therein: notably Canon de Saram (then Vice-Principal of S. Thomas); one Dudley S. Senanayake (who became one Ceylon’s Prime Ministers); Richard Hermon (captaining S. Thomas); Robert Senanayake (later a President of the Board of Control for Ceylon Cricket in the 1950s and 1960s); IH Seppelt ………….. presumably from the lineage producing the famous line of Seppelt wines): SF Downer (whose son became South Australias PM and served as Foreign Minister for Australia writ large’).
Of the scoresheets presented in Essaying Cricket — only the batting of the local schools’ teams were so privileged — the most outstanding innings was that of the captain fo S.Thomas, Roy Hermon, who made 97 runs at the SSC grounds of that day. He therefore outshone other schoolboys from his generation in the three schools who went on to become stars on our cricket fields, notably ‘Sago’ Jayawickrema and FC Derek de Saram.
EMAIL NOTE from The Editor Thuppahi, 10 January 2024;
“The initial version of this item identified the Thomian captain as “Richard Hermon.” Mevan Pieris has indicated that he was “ROY Herman” …. so thanks Mevan.
I was unthinking because there is an incisive thinker and writer with a Lankan background named “Richard Hermon;” …. A Trinitian I think. …. So, a lineage with wide-ranging skills.”