Capt. William Campbell Church (5 August 1883 – 28 June 1915) was a Scottish

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.

Early life

Church was born in

Partick Partick ( sco, Pairtick, Scottish Gaelic: ''Partaig'') is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch, to the east Yorkhill and Kelvingrove Park (across the River Kelvin), and to t ...

, Glasgow, to William Reginald Monteith Church, a chartered accountant and stockbroker, and Christina Ainslie Church. He was educated at Glasgow Academy but left for Switzerland in 1902. He was educated at South African College.

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

He moved back to Scotland to attend university, where he played for

Glasgow Academicals The Glasgow Academical Football Club is the third oldest rugby football club in Scotland. The club was also a founder member of the Scottish Football Union (the future SRU) in 1873. History Glasgow Hawks In 1997 the decision was made to ...

. He played on the wing for

side.

Provincial career

He was capped by Glasgow District in

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

International career

Church was capped for in 1906. He was also selected to play against New Zealand but he declined this.

Military career

He was killed in action in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

while serving with the Cameronians during the Gallipoli campaign.Bath, p. 109 He is on the

Helles Memorial The Helles Memorial is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission war memorial near Sedd el Bahr, in Turkey, on the headland at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula overlooking the Dardanelles. It includes an obelisk which is over high. The memorial ...

for the missing at

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

References

External links

"An entire team wiped out by the Great War"
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The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

'', 6 November 2009 1883 births 1915 deaths Rugby union players from Partick Scottish rugby union players Scotland international rugby union players Glasgow Academicals rugby union players British military personnel killed in World War I Cameronians officers Glasgow District (rugby union) players Glasgow University RFC players British Army personnel of World War I Rugby union centres {{UK-army-bio-stub