, this exhibition will tell the story of how rugby football was invented at the prestigious Rugby School in 1823, when a boy called William Webb Ellis decided that, rather than catching and kicking the ball – 'football' then was more like Aussie Rules – he'd run with it instead. There's no concrete evidence that this actually occurred. A limited amount is known about Webb Ellis; due to a lack of portraits, the statue of him in the town – which has just had a pre-World Cup spruce-up – is based on the sculptor's son. Webb Ellis was only credited with his infamous act of cheating after he died. But why let that get in the way of a good story? And the exhibition will be good. An array of gems from the Rugby School archives will be on display: balls and jerseys; 'follow up' caps (which were invented here) from the 19th century to the 1970s; photos and artworks, including the oldest oil painting depicting a Rugby School game, played in 1859; and the sixth levee book, dating to 1842, which contains the first ever written rules of the game. Also on display, for the first time, will be a scrapbook create){kind=link}
As England begin their tilt at the Rugby World Cup, we visit the Warwickshire town – and the centuries-old school – where it all began
“I’m actually more of a cricket man…” Hush descended as Mandeep Singh, operations manager at Brownsover Hall, dropped that bombshell while showing me the hotel’s leafy grounds. I could swear traffic on the M6 halted, squirrels stopped squirrelling. Was one allowed to say that in these parts?
Built in the 1850s by Sir George ‘St Pancras’ Gilbert Scott, Gothic Revival-style Brownsover sits on the outskirts of Rugby, a place synonymous with the game it spawned 200 years ago. I was staying in the hall’s grand Webb Ellis room, a fitting base for exploring the Warwickshire town, to see how it’s celebrating its sporting bicentenary on the eve of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
I started at the Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, a rather wonderful and well-curated space in the town centre, free to visit and gearing up to host He Ran With It. Opening on September 16 (and running until November 3), this exhibition will tell the story of how rugby football was invented at the prestigious Rugby School in 1823, when a boy called William Webb Ellis decided that, rather than catching and kicking the ball – ‘football’ then was more like Aussie Rules – he’d run with it instead.
There’s no concrete evidence that this actually occurred. A limited amount is known about Webb Ellis; due to a lack of portraits, the statue of him in the town – which has just had a pre-World Cup spruce-up – is based on the sculptor’s son. Webb Ellis was only credited with his infamous act of cheating after he died. But why let that get in the way of a good story?