Arnold Joseph Tancred (30 October 1904 – 22 September 1963) was an Australian

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player, a state and

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

representative flanker. He was prominent in the

meat industry The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is ...

in Australia with significant family business interests in meat wholesaling. He owned and raced horses and served a term as President of the

New South Wales Rugby Union The New South Wales Rugby Union, or NSWRU, is the governing body for the sport of rugby union within most of the state of New South Wales in Australia. It is a member and founding union of Rugby Australia. Within Australia it is considered t ...

Early life

Tancred born in

Leichhardt, New South Wales Leichhardt is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and is the administrative centre for the local government are ...

was the youngest of ten children born to Thomas Tancred, a butcher from

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and his

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

-born wife Anna, née O'Connor. He was educated in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, where his father took the family pursuing opportunities in the meat trade, at

St. Patrick's College, Wellington St Patrick's College is a Roman Catholic boys' secondary school in New Zealand. History Founded by Archbishop Francis Redwood Society of Mary (Marists), SM, St Patrick's opened on 1 June 1885 with nine day pupil, day-boys and twelve boarders. ...

. Arnold returned to Sydney in the 1920s, along with some of his six brothers.

Playing career

Tancred's Sydney club career was with the Glebe-Balmain club in the 1920s. He claimed a total of three international rugby caps for Australia on the

1927–28 Waratahs tour of the British Isles, France and Canada Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

. With no

Queensland Rugby Union The Queensland Rugby Union, or QRU, is the Sports governing body, governing body for the sport of rugby union within the state of Queensland in Australia. It is a member and founding union of Rugby Australia. The QRU was founded in Brisbane in ...

administration or competition in place from 1919 to 1929, the

New South Wales Waratahs The New South Wales Waratahs ( or ;), referred to as the Waratahs, are an Australian professional rugby union team representing the majority of New South Wales in the Super Rugby competition. The Riverina and other southern parts of the state, ...

were the top

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n representative

side of the period and a number of their fixtures of 1920s played against full international opposition were decreed by the

Australian Rugby Union Rugby Australia Ltd, previously named the Australian Rugby Union Limited and Australian Rugby Football Union Limited, is an Australian company operating the premier rugby union competition in Australia and teams. It has its origins in 1949. It ...

in 1986 as official Test matches. His appearances in the internationals against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1927 thus now have Test match status.

Rugby manager

Later he would be the Tour Manager and unofficial coach of the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and so ...

on the

1947–48 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland, France and North America Between July 1947 and March 1948 the Australia national rugby union team – the Wallabies – conducted a world tour encompassing Ceylon, Britain, Ireland, France and the United States on which they played five Tests and thirty-six minor tour m ...

. Journalist Phil Tressider accompanied the touring party and wrote of Tancred, "''I remember Tancred as a grim, brooding man who not only managed the team but coached it and was sole selector. He would brook no interference and he kept the press at arm's length. He was fortified by his experiences as a player with the 1927-28 Waratahs and he had an aching ambition for victory"'',Phil Tressider reproduced in ''Spirit of Rugby'' p43-46 (1st published Sydney Daily Telegraph 1988 Sir Nicholas Shehadie was in the playing squad and wrote of Tancred. "'' ewas a very strict disciplinarian who was determined that we would win as many matches as possible. He would constantly remind us that we would only be remembered for the number of matches we won''"

Businessman

Tancred's paternal grandfather, Peter Tancred, established himself as a wholesale butcher in Kent St Sydney in 1844 before travelling to the US to further his prospects. Thomas Tancred, Arnold's father, branched out in 1869, starting a wholesale and retail meat business on Glebe Island in SydneyEasyStreet Retreat
/ref> before taking the family to New Zealand. In the 1920s Arnold and some of his older brothers returned to Sydney. Under the leadership o
Henry Eugene Tancred (1897-1961)
they established the Tancred Bros meat business which by 1956 was the listed company, Tancred Bros Industries Ltd one of Australia's largest wholesale butchering firms. Arnold succeeded his elder brother Henry as Chairman and Managing Director of the business in 1959, and from 1961-63 was a member of the Meat Board, the national producer-owned company that regulates promotes the meat industry in Australia. Arnold Tancred was a pioneer in the export of Australian beef to the US, where his father had been born. His single term as President of the

was in 1959. He was active in the thoroughbred industry, owning and racing horses.

References

Footnotes

Published sources

* Collection (1995) ''Gordon Bray presents The Spirit of Rugby'', Harper Collins Publishers Sydney (essay specific to this article Phil Tressider's ''The Class of '47–48'' 1st published Sydney's ''Daily Telegraph'', 1987) * Shehadie, Sir Nicholas (2003) ''A Life Worth Living'', Simon & Schuster Australia

Online

Arnold Tancred at scrum.comADB entry HE Tancred with details on AJ Tancred
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tancred, Arnold 1904 births 1963 deaths Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Australian Roman Catholics Australian people of Irish descent New Zealand businesspeople Rugby union players from Sydney People educated at St. Patrick's College, Wellington 20th-century Australian businesspeople Rugby union flankers