BIO

Stuart Bright blossomed as sportsman at St Peter's College but did not flourish when invited to play at Norwood.
Born at Clare on 8 October 1878, he played in all  six intercollegiate football and cricket matches from 1894 to 1896.  He took 10 wickets - 6/39 and 4/86  - in helping to sink  Prince Alfred College by six wickets in 1896. 

He was equally effective in intercollegiate football.  At 15, he kicked an excellent goal from the forward pocket as St Peter's College romped home, 10.10 to 5.15, in 1894.  He was his team's best player, just ahead of future Norwood men Jimmy Blackmore and James Gosse, when Prince Alfred College turned the tables the following year, 6.8 to 5.8.  Performances in that game earned Bright and Blackmore selection in the Norwood team which beat lowly North Adelaide 14.14 to 4.7 on 10 August 1895.

Bright and Blackmore  played for Norwood against Norwood Albert in a pre-season trial in 1896 and were expected to be added to the Norwood list after the intercollegiate game in June. In that game Bright, with two goals, and Blackmore were again leading lights as SPSC walloped PAC  6.8 to nil.  Blackmore did finish the season with Norwood but there is no evidence Bright donned the red-and-blue again. Both were seen as likely starters in 1896 but neither appears to have played.

Bright was a prominent figure in the Adelaide Hunt Club in the  first decade of the new century. He played cricket  for St Peter's Old Collegians against the Governor-General's XI at the college grounds in 1909.

In 1931, William Stuart Bright was struck off the roll of solicitors and sentenced to two-and-a-half years' gaol for the fraudulent conversion of 41 pounds nine shillings. He died in Adelaide on 31 December 1968.

P Robins Oct 2017

* Picture kindly supplied by Andrea McKinnon-Matthews, Archivist at St Peter’s College.