The Fishermen 1875-2025

Chapter Three

‘HMS Brixham’

The newly refurbished Smardon Gates at Astley Park stand as a monument to one man’s devotion to Brixham rugby club, from taking the field as a teenage forward in 1888 through six decades as a club official and life member.

Henry Maddick Smardon MBE was six years old when the club was founded and as a schoolboy he would have almost certainly been cheering on James Seaward’s ‘Invincibles’ team of the early 1880s.

‘Admiral’ HM Smardon prominent among the dignitaries at the Devon RFU diamond jubilee. WMN, 22 September 1937.

By the time Devon RFU marked its diamond jubilee in 1937 with a match against a President’s XV at Exeter he was feted as the ‘grand old man’ of Brixham rugby, having been president of the county in 1913-14. As vice-president, looking forward to a rare second term as president in 1938-39, it fell to Henry to propose a toast at the post-match dinner to ‘the teams and referee’. As well as thanking the international players present he made a point of congratulating Mr Stanbury, the referee, on his “excellent command of the game.”

According to the Herald Express’s report of the occasion (20 September 1937) he also had ‘an interesting story’ to tell of the early days of rugby at Brixham, most probably inspired by his childhood heroes, the ‘Invincibles’:

‘At that time the town possessed a team of fishermen which went through several seasons without a single defeat. It was not uncommon for the players, when they were becalmed at sea, to row their boats containing their week’s catch from as far off as Start Point to Brixham, land their fish, and play a game – and win.’

Start Point to Brixham is around 15 nautical miles. Even allowing a touch of exaggeration, it’s several hours’ rowing, a remarkable feat of sinewy strength, endurance and teamwork. To then unload the catch and climb a steep hill from the fish quay to get stuck into a game of rugby almost defies belief. No wonder they were unbeatable!

It was against that background of local folklore and pride in his home town that Henry Smardon emerged as one of the most remarkable characters in Brixham’s history, a man with a huge capacity for dutiful service and civic responsibility.

When fellow citizens were in need of wise counsel, inspiring leadership, clear-sighted decision-making or just practical hands-on help, they looked to this local schoolmaster. His lifelong service to education, rugby football, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Brixham Regatta, the local council, public health and a dozen more organisations that touched on people’s lives was justly recognised in the award of the MBE in the 1944 New Year’s Honours list.

As well as being chairman of Brixham Urban District Council, president of the Devon County Teachers’ Association and honorary secretary of the Brixham Hospital, he found time to be Brixham correspondent of The Times and the Western Morning News. His family’s newsagents shop at Bolton Cross also doubled as the town’s first lending library.  

Generations of pupils had their lives shaped by Henry during his 46-year career as a no-nonsense master at Furzeham School. One of the boys, Leonard James Callaghan, was to occupy all the great offices of State, becoming Prime Minister as Jim Callaghan in 1976. He returned to the school in 1989 to help celebrate its centenary.

Known to all as ‘Spot’ Smardon (although nobody seems to know why) or ‘HMS’ in later life, Henry’s love for the sea was as constant as the twice-daily tides rinsing and filling Shoalstone Pool. He was the founder of Brixham Yacht Club, secretary of the Brixham Royal Regatta for 50 years and Secretary of the lifeboat station right up to his death on 28 October 1948.

Henry Smardon in his element on sports day.

Viewed even from the perspective of the time-poor 21st century, his energy, selflessness and unstinting commitment to public life in all its guises is extraordinary. That is all the more so when you consider that official communication was by letter, postcard or telegram, and to make a telephone call you had to be routed through an operator at the local exchange. But what drove him to take on all these duties and responsibilities? As so often with high-achieving individuals, there may be a clue from a tragic event early in Henry’s childhood.

The West Briton, 23 January 1873.

He was just three years old when his father, Henry Tozer Smardon, was lost at sea aged 28 on the night of 19 January 1873, barely a month after earning his Master’s certificate. Already highly regarded by fellow mariners, he was captaining the Brixham-built schooner Via carrying coal from Cardiff when the vessel was struck by a heavy sea 50 miles west of the Isles of Scilly. Two of the crew were knocked senseless and the topgallant sail was lost along with part of the skylight and the wheel where Henry Snr must have been standing.

He was not seen again. At home in Brixham the grief could not have been more acute for his wife Susan Anne, who gave birth to their second child, Susan Ellen, less than a month later. Quite possibly, Henry Jnr attended his sister’s christening at All Saints Church on 7 March but to what extent he was aware of these events, we cannot know.

The 1881 Census records that mother and children were living with her elder sister, Ellen Maddick, at Breakwater House and they were still there in 1891, by which time Henry was 21. Whether or not his mother tried to dissuade him from pursuing the life of a mariner, there must have been some relief that he opted for the teaching profession. So did his sister, becoming head of North Bovey school on Dartmoor for more than 30 years and also serving as a local councillor.

The Maddick-Smardon gravestone in St Mary’s churchyard

Susan Anne lived out the rest of her life as a widow, dying on the same weekend in 1935 as the 62nd anniversary of her husband’s death and four days before her 90th birthday. Both her name and his are on the gravestone in the churchyard at St Mary’s, along with that of her sister Ellen. Below Henry’s name is a poignant inscription taken from lines 29-30 of Psalm 107 (He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed): “Then are they glad because they are at rest.”

Henry’s great-grandson John Barker, 65, was told about the memorial by his mother Isabelle, the great man’s granddaughter, who accompanied him to Buckingham Palace when he received his MBE. John recalled: “There was a family story about a relative who was lost at sea and that was why HMS started doing so much for the Lifeboat.”

Consciously or not, Henry demonstrated throughout his life a strong respect for the sea’s power and unpredictability and became the greatest champion of the Torbay lifeboat, even to attending the occasional ‘shout’ himself. But that life-saving instinct was already there as a 20-year-old. One early summer afternoon in in 1890, Henry was looking out across the harbour near Breakwater House and saw a lad fall into the sea. The Totnes Times carried an account of the drama in its edition of 10 May:

On Monday evening whilst a boy named Furneaux was playing near the Breakwater steps, he accidentally fell into the water. Mr H Smardon, who witnessed the accident from his house, ran to the spot and plunged into the sea, without divesting himself of any of his clothing, and succeeded in rescuing him.

Totnes Times, 28 June 1890

Within a couple of months, Henry was presented with a Humane Society award for bravery. More than 60 years later when the club was raising funds for the Smardon Gates at Astley Park, there was a contribution of a guinea  (£1 10p) from a G Furneaux. It’s tempting to think that it was the very same boy, thankful for being saved from the sea.

Henry was then in his first teaching job as an assistant master at Furzeham School, having passed his fourth year’s examinations as a pupil teacher more than two years earlier. The appointment, ratified by the Brixham School Board on 4 February 1888, came with an annual salary of £30.

Being taller and more powerfully built than most, he was a natural for rugby football and in his early teens would have been inspired by the ‘Invincibles’. But after James Seaward was lost at sea along with the crew of his fishing smack ICU on Christmas Eve 1884, the Brixham club’s fortunes fell to a very low ebb. No longer one of the strongest clubs in Devon they were conspicuous by their absence in local newspaper coverage and rivals’ fixtures lists. Exactly when Henry made his debut is unclear but it is likely to have been early in the 1888-89 season.

Totnes Times, 10 November 1888

A rare match report in the Totnes Times (10 November 1888) credits him as a try scorer in a victory against Dartmouth B. The very fact that Brixham were playing a return fixture against Dartmouth’s B team is an indication of the decline in the club’s fortunes. Henry also features among the forwards for a home fixture against Babbacombe on 17 November 1888, played in “delightful weather” according to the Torquay Times, which added: “A large number of the fishing community were present, and testified their approval or disapproval of the play.”

The game was lost by ‘one try and five saves to one disputed try and three saves’, Babbacombe claiming in vain that the Brixham captain ran into touch on the way to scoring.

 By January 1889 the club was being referred to as ‘Brixham Stars’ in a letter to the Editor of the Totnes Times, following a fractious third XV fixture with Totnes and a fairly trivial dispute over selection of first and second team ‘ringers’. The club continued to play under the new moniker in 1889-90, attracting decent crowds on occasion, but fixtures seemed to be few and far between, especially in the latter half of the season.

Totnes Times, 26 July 1890

Some individuals clearly felt that the loss of identity and reputation was not sustainable and that the future of the club was in jeopardy. Henry, still only 20, was among those who attended a meeting at the Infant Schoolroom in July 1890 “to consider the desirability of forming a club for the ensuing year.”

One of the first decisions taken was to dispense with the ‘Stars’ name and revert to ‘The Brixham Football Club’.

Henry recommended that the club enter the Junior Cup and that was agreed too. Re-establishing morale and unity of purpose within the club would have been a priority and the club captain, C Edwards, made a point of expressing his hope that “members would work together, and that they would have a successful season.”

The renaissance did not happen overnight. On the 23 December 1890 the Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette published clubs’ fixtures lists through to the end of the season but nothing for Brixham. However, they did play Totnes on Boxing Day, losing by a goal and two tries to nil on the Paignton Cycle Track, which was then the main venue in South Devon for significant games.

Despite being included on Torquay’s list for a final match at Brixham at the end of March 1891 there were no fixtures offered by other clubs, certainly not those represented in the Devon side – Albion, Barnstaple, Exeter, Newton and Keyham College Students.

Fortunately, there was a match arranged at late notice with ‘Torquay Athletes’ on 17 January 1891. Henry was the goalkicker and nearly converted a ‘free kick’, which we would regard as a ‘penalty kick’ these days. According to the report in the Devon and Exeter Gazette two days later, the visitors won by two tries and a drop goal to nil.  At this tipping point in Brixham’s history, Henry was one of just six players remaining from those who lined up against Babbacombe two seasons previously.

Devon and Exeter Gazette, 19 January 1891.

He would have been delighted that the Junior Cup first round draw presented Brixham with a home tie against Torquay Wanderers on 7 February but again they could not breach the visitors’ defence, losing by two tries to nil. The Totnes Times reported: ‘the Brixham men pressed the visitors more often than the score would indicate.”

There was a glimmer of hope in a victory over Torquay Juniors at Plainmoor on 21 March 1891 and Brixham were invited to take part in a charity tournament at the Recreation Ground on 4 April to raise funds for Torbay Hospital. It involved junior teams from Dartmouth, Totnes, Newton, Aller Vale, Teignmouth, Victorians as well as the hosts. Unfortunately it was such a chaotic event with so many delays that Brixham went home before its conclusion.

Meanwhile two teams, representing Fishermen and Mechanics, played a match in aid of the family of James Hill, a member of Brixham Football Club, who was one of five who had drowned when the trawlers Dazzler and Susan Patey collided off Start Point on 3 March.

The ‘men of the sea’ won the match and £3 5s was handed over to Mrs Hill. It is fair to assume that the tragedy reaffirmed Henry’s commitment to protecting and saving those in peril on the sea, leading to his taking on the role of Secretary of the Lifeboat Station from January 1924 until his death.

Possibly the proudest moment of his life came in 1932 when he presented the Coxswain and crew of the new lifeboat, the ‘George Shee’, to HRH the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) in a naming ceremony in the outer basin of Brixham inner harbour.

Henry Smardon (centre) after presenting the lifeboat crew to HRH Prince of Wales during the naming ceremony in Brixham harbour in 1932.

Devon and Exeter Gazette, 1 June 1891

Despite all the club’s trials and tribulations, a newspaper report of a meeting on 29 May 1891 reveals an upbeat mood, with a good turn-out of members and a ‘very favourable’ financial position. Despite the threadbare press coverage, Brixham fulfilled 16 fixtures, winning five with three draws and eight defeats. The club also made a point of sending a representative, Mr Eddy, to the annual meeting of Devon RFU a couple of weeks later.

Henry, mature beyond his 21 years, summoned players and club officials to a further meeting at the Sailors’ Rooms on Saturday 17 September after pre-season training at Furzeham.

The Honorary Secretary reported that nearly 30 members had joined the club. Top of the agenda was the need to find a playing field with changing accommodation, and they would also call on the Devon RFU’s help to enforce fixtures arranged with Torquay Juniors, who had objected to ‘the rough play of the Brixhamites’.

The sanction for not fulfilling a fixture could be severe, up to 18 months suspension for an official of the offending club. However, the correspondent of the Torquay Times observed: “whoever saw them play could not deny that it was an exhibition of brute force, in which science was conspicuous by its absence.”

Torquay Times, 15 October 1891

Brixham began the new season with an encouraging win over Torquay Wanderers by a goal and two saves to nil on 10 October. Yet the afternoon was marred by “some unpleasantness”, according to the Torquay Times whose correspondent then added: “The Brixhamites have been characterised by rough and questionable play ever since the club was formed… On Saturday the referee was a Brixham man who, though a playing member, showed a lamentable lack of knowledge of the laws of the game.”

However, the official in question was Henry, who wasted no time in rebutting this casual slur through the letters column of the newspaper. He pointed out: “There was no complaint from either side about the game, nor did I witness any semblance of foul play except in the case of one of the Wanderers’ forwards, whom I ordered off the field for drunkenness.” He certainly had the last laugh, serving for many years as Honorary Secretary of the Devon RFU Referee Appointments Committee.

Henry’s playing career seemed already to be coming to a close as he took on more and more commitments, within the school and in community life as well as in sport – he also became secretary of Brixham Cricket Club in 1892. Before too long he was a family man too after marrying Emma Bonner in late 1895. Their first child, William Reginald, was born on Christmas Day the following year and Francis Henry followed six years later.

Meanwhile, the club was beginning to find its feet again, winning the Devon Junior Cup in 1905 and again in 1909, by which time Henry had been elected to the committee of Devon RFU. Within five years he had been elevated to president of the county.

Immediately after the Great War, Brixham reached the final of Devon Senior Cup and in 1920-21 Henry officiated at the opening of a new stand and changing rooms. An even prouder moment came the following season when the Fishermen lifted the Senior Cup for the first time, beating Torquay Athletic 3-nil to the delight of 2,000 supporters who had travelled over to Newton Abbot’s Rackerhayes ground for the final.

In a golden decade from 1924 Brixham secured two more Senior Cups and finished runner-up four times, but financial clouds were threatening the club’s very existence. Up stepped Henry once again, devising a plan with his friend Bernard Astley to purchase the ground at Rea Barn and then transfer the ownership to the local authority. A novel lease-back arrangement then guaranteed the club free use in perpetuity. Once again, Henry had come forward to save the day.

Kevin Coughlan

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