![Richard Lindon (1816-1887)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Richard_Lindon_%281816-1887%29.jpg)
Richard Lindon (30 June 1816 – 10 June 1887) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
leatherworker
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...
who was instrumental in the development of the modern-day
rugby ball
A rugby ball is an elongated ellipsoidal ball used in both codes of rugby football. Its measurements and weight are specified by World Rugby and the Rugby League International Federation, the governing bodies for both codes, rugby union and rugby l ...
by advancing the craft for ball, rubber bladder, and air pump.
Life and career
Lindon was born at
Clifton-upon-Dunsmore
Clifton-upon-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire in England on the north-eastern outskirts of Rugby, approximately from Rugby town centre. The population of the parish taken at the 2011 census was 1,304. ...
just outside
Rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
,
England, he set up home and shop at 6/6a Lawrence Sheriff Street, Rugby, immediately opposite the front doors of the Quadrangle of the
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
. As a boot and shoemaker, Lindon supplied footwear to the townsfolk of Rugby including the teachers and pupils of the school.
Balls in those days were not spherical, but more plum-shaped. This was because a
pig's bladder
Pig bladder (also pig's bladder) is the urinary bladder of a domestic pig, similar to the human urinary bladder. Today, this hollow organ has various applications in medicine, and in traditional cuisines and customs. Historically, the pig bladde ...
was inflated by mouth through the snapped stem of a clay pipe then encased in panels of stitched leather. As such, the individual bladder dictated the shape of each ball.
By 1849, Lindon, now aged 33, who naturally had regular supplies of boot leather delivered, found himself bombarded by the boys of Rugby School to manufacture footballs for them. Lindon and his wife worked flat-out producing more balls than shoes.
Mrs Rebecca Lindon, (b 1830) besides being the owner of her own employment agency for servants as well as the mother to 17 children, was the official "green" pig's bladder inflator. Blowing pig's bladders was not without its hazards. If the pig was diseased, it was going into Mrs Lindon's lungs. Eventually Mrs Lindon blew on enough infected pig's bladders to fall ill and consequently die.
Around 1862 Lindon sought a safer substitute to the pig's bladder and came up with the
India rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...
bladder as an alternative. India rubber was too tough to inflate by mouth and after seeing an ordinary medical Ear Syringe he produced a larger brass version to blow up his footballs, which he demonstrated, and won medals for, at an exhibition in London.
This allowed the production of the first round ball, though it still had a button at each end of the ball to hold the stitching together, at the point where the leather panels met. "Buttonless balls" became a prime selling point for suppliers and manufacturers by the 1880s.
The Rugby School boys still wanted an oval ball produced to distinguish their hand and foot game from
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, so Lindon created a bladder design which allowed a more egg-shaped buttonless ball to be manufactured. This was the first specifically designed four-panel rugby ball and the start of size standardisation.
By 1861 Richard Lindon was recognised as the principal Foot-Ball Maker to Rugby School, Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin Universities. Lindon's "Big-Side Match Ball" was recognised as the true rugby ball and was successfully manufactured by both Richard Lindon and subsequently, his son, Hughes John Lindon for 50 years.
Lindon did not patent his ball, his bladder or his pump.
Death
On 10 June 1887, he died in his own home.
Richard Lindon & Co.
Richard Lindon & Co. (Rugby, England) hold the Registered Design for the Original Punt-about ButtonBall. A rugby ball hand stitched to the same standards and texture as the 1850s original is displayed in the museum at
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
.
Around 1854 at Rugby School, the ball was kicked high in the air, dropped down a disused chimney and was lost behind wooden panels for over a century and a half. A hybrid 7-panel ButtonBall, made before the split between the Rugby Football Union and Football Association, it is the world's oldest known "template" ball, inflated with an India-rubber bladder which revolutionised ball manufacture and allowed the spread of the game throughout the world. It is the only original known to survive. This Punt-about ButtonBall holds the remains of one of Richard Lindon's India Rubber inflatable bladders and resembles the shape of the earliest plum rugby ball. The "panel and button" design led to the creation the first soccer balls.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindon, Richard
1816 births
1887 deaths
Rugby football
Leatherworkers