There's a Deathless Myth on the Close Tonight: Re-assessing Rugby's Place in the History of Sport

Abstract

Rugby School has traditionally been credited with an important place in the development of modern organised games. The most famous names in this attribution have been William Webb Ellis, the pupil who ‘invented’ rugby football, and Dr. Thomas Arnold, the headmaster who gained global recognition through the publication of Tom Brown's Schooldays. Not surprisingly, academic historians have debunked the significance of both of these men, since it is demonstrable that Webb Ellis did nothing of significance and that Arnold had little interest in games. But the significance of the school in this respect is in some ways even greater in reality – though quite different – from that in the popular myths. ‘The Close’ in the mid-nineteenth century was a recreational and moral laboratory in the making of games. The boys there not only invented new rules, skills and customs but took them rapidly to other schools, universities and cities. Moreover, such Rugbeans as Richard Sykes, William Arnold, Herbert Castens and Tom Wills took the practices of the Close to five continents, instituting a global sporting revolution which would have occurred whether ‘organised games’ became an approved necessity of education or not. This account uses some important previously uncited sources, especially the various minutes and journals produced by the boys at Rugby.