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Alfred Thomas Cond, born on 16th May 1886, was admitted to King Edward’s School in September 1900 having first attended Wintersloe School in Moseley. In July 1902, he was awarded a full scholarship. He lived with his family in ‘Dale House’, Russell Road, Moseley, while his father worked as a printer.
At School, Alfred enjoyed a successful sporting career in fives, cricket, rugby and athletics; for example in the high jump in July 1904 he achieved third place but in fact jumped five foot, the same height cleared by the winner, but only afterwards in the struggle for second and third places. A month earlier he and his partner Tasker won the fives doubles competition, their performance eliciting this comment in the Chronicle: “The winnners understood one another’s game thoroughly and on their play deserved to win.” A further report on his rugby for the 1st XV said: “A dashing player, but apt to lose his head. A good dribble, and can tackle. Shirks the scrum at times but kicks well.” He was captain of the cricket 1st XI and his membership of the Debating Society shows he was a confident orator. On 20th November 1903 he gave a “very novel and interesting paper” on “Players and Theatres at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.” He left School in July 1904.
In Hastings, on 23rd January 1913, Alfred married Canadian Janet McGill Mowat, and three years later, in 1916, enlisted as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve aboard HMS Hermione. He was first engaged in motor patrols, and then served in the Motor Patrol Flotilla between Holyhead and the Isle of Man. In July 1917 he was promoted to Lieutenant in command of a trawler out of Milford Haven. He died of pneumonia at Halifax, Nova Scotia, aged thirty-two, on April 17th 1919.