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William Webb Ellis (24 November 1806 – 24 January 1872) was an English Anglican clergyman who, by tradition, has been credited as the inventor of rugby football while a pupil 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. ...
. According to legend, Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a school football match in 1823, thus creating the "rugby" style of play. Although the story has become firmly entrenched in the sport's folklore, it is not supported by substantive evidence, and is discounted by most rugby historians as an
origin myth An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have st ...
. The Webb Ellis Cup is presented to the winners of the Rugby World Cup.


Biography

William Webb Ellis was born in Salford,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...
, the younger of three sons of James Ellis, a cornet in the 7th Dragoon Guards. The eldest son, James, died aged three and the second son, Thomas, of Dunchurch,
Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avo ...
, became a surgeon. Third son William was made a Lieutenant of the 3rd Dragoon Guardsin 1809, joining them in
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
,Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland and Ireland, from the Conquest to the present time, William Smith Ellis, 1866, pg 175 William's father James was married for a second time in Exeter in 1804 to Ann, daughter of William Webb, a surgeon, of Alton, Hampshire. His paternal grandfather was from Pontyclun in South Wales, a descendant of the Ellis family of Kiddal Hall, just off the A64 near Potterton, West Riding of Yorkshire. After his father was killed during the Peninsular War in a cavalry action near Albuera on 1 July 1812, Mrs Ellis, in receipt of an allowance of £30 from His Majesty's Royal Bounty in recognition of her husband's service, decided to move to Rugby, Warwickshire, so that William and his elder brother, Thomas, would receive an education 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. ...
with no cost as a local foundationer (i.e. a pupil living within a radius of 10 miles of the Rugby Clock Tower). He attended the school in Town House from 1816 to 1825 and was recorded as being a good scholar and
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
er, although it was noted that he was "rather inclined to take unfair advantage at cricket". The incident in which William Webb Ellis supposedly caught the ball in his arms during a football match (which was allowed) and ran with it (which was not) is supposed to have happened in the latter half of 1823. After leaving Rugby in 1826, he went to Brasenose College, Oxford, aged 20. He played
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
for his college, and for Oxford University against
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
in a first-class match in 1827. He graduated with a B.A. in 1829 and received his M.A. in 1831. He entered the
Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...
and became chaplain of St George's Chapel,
Albemarle Street Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray was based here, and Oscar Wilde, a member of the Albemarle Club, where an insult he received ...
, London (closed c.1909), and then rector of
St Clement Danes St Clement Danes is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Although the first church on the site was reputedly founded in the 9th century by the Danes, the current ...
in the Strand. He became well known as a low church
evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
clergyman. In 1855, he became rector of
Magdalen Laver Magdalen Laver is a village and a civil parish in the Epping Forest (district), Epping Forest district, in the county of Essex, England. Magdalen Laver is east of Harlow and of close proximity to the M11 motorway. Magdalen Laver has a village h ...
in
Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
. A picture of him (the only known portrait) appeared in the '' Illustrated London News'' in 1854, after he gave a particularly stirring sermon on the subject of the Crimean War. He never married and died in the south of France in 1872, leaving an estate of £9,000, mostly to various charities. His grave in ''le cimetière du vieux château'' at Menton in Alpes Maritimes was rediscovered by
Ross McWhirter Alan Ross McWhirter (12 August 1925 – 27 November 1975) was, with his twin brother, Norris, the cofounder of the 1955 ''Guinness Book of Records'' (known since 2000 as ''Guinness World Records'') and a contributor to the television programm ...
in 1958, was renovated by the Riviera Hash House Harriers in 2003 and is now maintained by the French Rugby Federation.


Legend


Origin

The sole source of the story of Webb Ellis picking up the ball originates with one Matthew Bloxam, a local antiquarian and former pupil of Rugby. On 10 October 1876, he wrote to ''The Meteor'', the Rugby School magazine, that he had learnt from an unnamed source that the change from a kicking game to a handling game had "...originated with a town boy or foundationer of the name of Ellis, Webb Ellis". On 22 December 1880, in another letter to ''The Meteor'', Bloxam elaborates on the story: Bloxam's first account differed from his second one four years later. In his first letter, in 1876, Bloxham claimed that Webb Ellis committed the act in 1824, a time by which Webb Ellis had left Rugby. In his second letter, in 1880, Bloxham put the year as 1823.


1895 investigation

The claim that Webb Ellis invented the game did not surface until four years after his death, and doubts have been raised about the story since 1895, when the Old Rugbeian Society first investigated it. The sub-committee conducting the investigation was "unable to procure any first hand evidence of the occurrence". Among those giving evidence, Thomas Harris and his brother John, who had left Rugby in 1828 and 1832 respectively (i.e. after the alleged Webb Ellis incident) recalled that handling of the ball was strictly forbidden. Thomas Harris, who requested that he "not equote as an authority", testified that Webb Ellis had been known as someone to take an "unfair advantage at football". John Harris, who would have been aged 10 years at the time of the alleged incident, did not claim to have been a witness to it. Additionally, he stated that he had not heard the story of Webb Ellis's creation of the game. Thomas Hughes (author of '' Tom Brown's Schooldays'') was asked to comment on the game as played when he attended the school (1834–1842). He is quoted as saying "In my first year, 1834, running with the ball to get a try by touching down within goal was not absolutely forbidden, but a jury of Rugby boys of that day would almost certainly have found a verdict of 'justifiable homicide' if a boy had been killed in running in." It has been suggested by Dunning and Sheard (2005) that it was no coincidence that this investigation was conducted in 1895, at a time when divisions within the sport led to the schism: the split into the sports of
rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...
and
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 it ...
. Dunning and Sheard suggest that the endorsement of a "reductionist"
origin myth An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have st ...
by the Rugbeians was an attempt to assert their school's position and authority over a sport that they were losing control of.


Jem Mackie

An article by Gordon Rayner in ''
The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner and tabloid ...
'' about the origin of Rugby football says that Thomas Hughes told the 1895 investigation that in 1838–1839 a Rugby School boy called Jem Mackie "was the first great runner-in", and that later (in or before 1842) Jem Mackie was expelled from Rugby School for an unspecified incident; in 1845 boys at the school first wrote down an agreed set of rules for the version of football played at Rugby School, which is now rugby football. Gordon Rayner says that the reason for Jem Mackie's expulsion may have damaged Mackie's reputation so much that Bloxam transferred Mackie's part in inventing Rugby football to Webb Ellis, and that a big donation by Bloxam to Rugby School's library may have influenced school official acceptance of this Webb Ellis version. Another theory is that Mackie's role may have been disregarded because the committee was seeking to prove Rugby School had invented the game, and thus may have preferred the earliest possible date. England Rugby says that William Webb Ellis's action (if it happened) did not lead to any immediate change in the rules but may well have inspired later imitators, though not Mackie, as Thomas Hughes said the Webb Ellis story had not survived into his own time (1834, which was before Mackie popularised running-in during 1838/39).


Plaque

A plaque, erected in 1895, at Rugby School bears the inscription: THIS STONE
COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF
WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS
WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL
AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME
FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT
THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF
THE RUGBY GAME
A.D. 1823


See also

* Abner Doubleday, sometimes apocryphally credited with inventing baseball * Tom Wills, attended Rugby School and pioneered Australian rules football


References


General

* * *


External links

*
Richard Lindon inventor of the "Oval" ball, the rubber bladder and the Brass Hand pump




{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, William Webb 1806 births 1872 deaths English people of Welsh descent Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford 19th-century English Anglican priests English cricketers English cricketers of 1826 to 1863 English expatriates in France History of rugby league History of rugby union World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees Oxford University cricketers People educated at Rugby School People from Rugby, Warwickshire People from Salford Rugby football