John MacCallum (11 October 1883 – 29 November 1957) was a

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 ...

international

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.

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

He played for

Watsonians Watsonian Football Club is a rugby union club based in Edinburgh and part of the Scottish Rugby Union. The club is connected with George Watson's College as a club for former pupils, and changed its policy in the 1980s to be a fully open club, ...

Provincial career

He represented Edinburgh District in 1910, captaining the side. He played for the

Blues Trial Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...

side against the

Whites Trial White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

side on 21 January 1911 while still with Watsonians.

International career

He played 26 times for

, scoring 2 tries and 9 conversions for a total of 24 points.

Medical career

MacCallum became a doctor. He became an assistant surgeon for the Royal Sick Children Hospital in Glasgow. He was a conscientious objector in the First World War. His medical training meant he was assigned a post in the army. At the time he was an Executive Tuberculosis officer for the County of Argyll. He had applied for his conscientious objector status but it had not come through. He was supposed to report to Stirling Castle for his conscription on 30 May 1916 and his non attendance found him in front of a judge in Oban Sheriff Court. MacCallum plead not guilty in view of his conscientious objection but the Sheriff found him guilty and gave him a choice of week's imprisonment or a £2 fine. The headline in ''The Scotsman'' "Fined as an absentee" indicated that MacCallum opted for the fine.

References

1883 births 1957 deaths Blues Trial players Edinburgh District (rugby union) players Rugby union forwards Rugby union players from Highland (council area) Scotland international rugby union players Scottish rugby union players Watsonians RFC players {{scotland-rugbyunion-bio-stub