An Old-Timer Is Given A New Lease Of Life!

A CLOCK WHICH HAS BEEN A PART OF THE FIXTURES AND FITTINGS AT CHRIST COLLEGE BRECON FOR OVER 65 YEARS HAS RECENTLY HAD A MUCH-NEEDED RESTORATION.

Many generations of Old Breconians have sat and enjoyed a meal in the school’s medieval dining hall over the years without perhaps paying much attention to a clock mounted on the wall.

Thanks to school funds and the generosity of the Old Breconian Association, the valuable Rowell’s of Oxford Station Dial Clock is happily ticking away once more.

The clock was gifted to the school by the family of an Old Breconian, Picton Hughes Jones who attended Christ College in the 1890s. Upon his death the family donated the clock as well as a sum of money to purchase gymnasium equipment for the new Memorial Hall which was opened in 1955.

Mr. Picton Hughes-Jones was born in 1880, attending Christ College in School House between 1892 and 1898. He was a well known member of the School at the end of the last century, and, although his actual school career was not specially distinguished, he afterward became very prominent in the Shipping Business. Some years ago he had the high honour of being elected President of the Liverpool Chamber of Trade. For over 50 years he was a faithful member of the OBA and was always ready to help the School, or individual members of it, in any way that he could. His health began to break down shortly before the Second World War and he had for some years been living in retirement in Somerset, where he died on June 16th 1951.

Picton Hughes Jones was caught in an earthquake in Jamaica in the early part of the 20th Century and wrote a lengthy descriptive piece about his experience for The Breconian of the time.

Thanks to the generosity of current and more recent Breconians, the Rowell’s Clock keeps time in the Dining Hall once again.