Conversation with William Webb Ellis
William Webb Ellis was a nineteenth century student at Rugby School in England
and in 1823 is reputed to have transgressed the rules of football, thus
unwittingly inventing the game of rugby. The conversation examines the accuracy
of this claim. A four-yearly Men’s Rugby World Cup was inaugurated in 1987. The
trophy awarded to the winning team is the Webb Ellis Cup.
Interviewer
Great to have you here.
WWE
Thank you. My pleasure.
Interviewer
Tell me a bit about football as it was played in your day at Rugby School.
WWE
It was brutal. The boys themselves devised the rules, such as they were. No
input from the masters. There was no limit to the number playing – it ranged
from about twenty to more than fifty in a team. Lots of injuries. You couldn’t
tackle but were allowed to obstruct any player on or off the ball. In my day
hacking was allowed but outlawed later.
Interviewer
Hacking?
WWE
Bringing someone down by kicking them on the shins. When that became illegal leg
tripping was still allowed. Sometimes there were out and out brawls.
Interviewer
Was it controlled, like by a referee?
WWE
After a fashion. But how do your control a hundred unruly teenage boys.
Interviewer
How were points scored?
WWE
Simply by the number of goals, just like football today. But the goals were H
shaped and to score the ball had to go over the crossbar, not under it. At Rugby
School you could score from ground level, you could catch the ball and dropkick.
Or you could catch it and move back and place it for somebody else to kick for
goal. The opposing team could stand level with the spot where the ball was
caught and charge as soon as it was placed so you needed to move well back.
Interviewer
You mentioned catching. So handling the ball was allowed?
WWE
Only to catch it. And to move back to kick it. But a fair bit of cheating went
on and a few, myself included, would run forward a few yards especially after
catching the ball on the run.
Interviewer
Did anybody ever pick the ball up off the ground?
WWE
They’d have got chucked out of the game.
Interviewer
Was this how football was played in all schools?
WWE
We rarely got to know how it was played in other schools but there were known to
be wide variations. We did once have a small group of visitors from Oxford and
they considered our form of football a little unorthodox. Their goalposts also
had a crossbar but to score the ball had to pass below it, not over it. It was
revealed in later years that some schools had no crossbar at all, allowing the
ball to pass between vertical posts at any height.
Interviewer
Did the rules change during your time at the school?
WWE
They got a bit looser and there was more cheating. But there were no major
changes. The rules were never actually written down during my time.
Interviewer
When did Rugby School football evolve into rugby union as it’s played today?
WWE
It’s not entirely clear when the evolution started. Running with the ball in
hand seems to have become acceptable by the late 1830s and the senior boys
codified the rules to allow it in 1845. It was still called football but the
game had become a mixture of kicking the ball and running with it. Kicking a
goal continued to be the only way to score. It took decades for the game to
evolve into its present form.
Interviewer
When did you leave Rugby School?
WWE
1825.
Interviewer
You left in 1825 and have said the rule allowing running forward with the ball
didn’t come in until the late 1830s. So it was never legal while you were at the
school?
WWE
Correct.
Interviewer
This brings us to the main point of our conversation. I presume you are aware
that a Rugby Union World Cup competition was inaugurated in 1987?
WWE
I most certainly am aware of that. New Zealand beat France 29-9 in the final.
Interviewer
And you are aware that teams in that event compete for the Webb Ellis Cup?
WWE
Again, I am most definitely aware of that and I feel extraordinarily flattered.
Interviewer
And your name is also immortalised on a plaque and statue outside Rugby School
to this day.
WWE
Flattery knows no bounds.
Interviewer
The wording on the plaque effectively credits you with the invention of rugby as
a sport.
WWE
The ultimate honour. If only I deserved it!
Interviewer
It’s widely believed that you do indeed deserve it. The plaque includes the
words “William Webb Ellis first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus
originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game.” Less flatteringly, it
also says “He had a fine disregard for the rules of his time.”
WWE
The last bit is probably true. I did stretch the rules a little. But the first
part, that my action “originated any distinctive feature” is decidedly untrue
and thoroughly disproven.
Interviewer
So you’re denying the truth of the statement on the plaque, even though it’s
been in place for over a century. It specifically states that it was your action
on one particular day in 1823 that led to the rule change allowing running while
carrying the ball.
WWE
Let’s look at the dates. They just don’t add up. The incident referred to on the
plaque is alleged to have occurred in 1823. Running forward with the ball didn’t
become legal until 1838 at the earliest, probably later. During the intervening
fifteen plus years there was no mention of William Webb Ellis being associated
with the rule change - in school records, newspapers, anywhere.
Interviewer
How do you think the story arose?
WWE
The plaque was not installed until 1900 but interest in the origins of rugby as
a sport had arisen twenty-four years earlier when a letter was published in the
Rugby School magazine.
Interviewer
What did the letter say and who wrote it?
WWE
It was written by an old boy of Rugby called Matthew Bloxam. He named me as
somebody known to have run forward carrying the ball. He didn’t say I was the
only one and his information came from a source that he didn’t name.
Interviewer
So just that rather vague assertion led to the installation of the plaque?
WWE
By no means. The plaque dates from 1900 and the letter was written in 1876. As
an aside, I had died in 1872 so regrettably couldn’t engage with the letter
writer over the issue. But he wrote another letter four years later which
suggested more specifically that the incident could have led to the eventual
rule change.
Interviewer
The second letter elaborated on the original claim?
WWE
It was much more specific. I can quote a section of it: “Ellis
disregarded the rule and on catching the ball, instead of retiring backwards,
rushed forwards with the ball in his hands towards the opposite goal, with what
result as to the game I know not, neither do I know how this infringement of a
well-known rule was followed up, or when it became, as it is now, a standing
rule."
Interviewer
It’s still a bit vague and doesn’t credit you with inventing a new game. You
said Bloxam wrote the second letter in 1880?
WWE
Yes.
Interviewer
When did he attend Rugby?
WWE
1813 to 1820
Interviewer
So he made the claim more than half a century after he left?
WWE
Yes. Remarkable memory you’d have to say.
Interviewer
You were there from 1816 to 1825 so you and Bloxam were contempories at the
school for some years. Did you know him?
WWE
I remember the name but can’t place him. He was three years ahead of me but had
a younger brother and it’s widely suspected that the brother was the unnamed
source of the story. My name was often bandied about in the years after Bloxam
senior left as the cheat who was always running with the ball. I said before
that I would often catch the ball on the run and then gallop a few extra yards.
A whole bunch of defenders would drag me down and practically bury me. “Webb
Ellis again,” they’d yell. Everyone got to know my name in those years. But the
rules didn’t change.
Interviewer
There are some enormous gaps in this narrative. Your alleged action occurred in
1823. What happened between then and the first Bloxam letter in 1876?
WWE
Precisely nothing, for fifty-three years. There was no research or theories
regarding the origin of the game, no mention of my name publicly or in school
records. Fifty-three blank pages. Then thirty-five more blank pages after the
second letter. It wasn’t until 1895 that the issue arose again.
Interviewer
What happened in 1895?
WWE
You may have heard of the Old Rugbeian Society – a group of loyal Rugby old-boys
who socialised regularly. They decided in the 1890s to investigate and establish
the true origins of the sport of Rugby once and for all. This was the height of
the Victorian era and there was a patriotic desire for Britain to claim
ownership of a whole range of sports that were by now being played
internationally, rugby being just one of them. The International Rugby Board had
been formed in Dublin in 1886 with Ireland, Scotland and Wales as its foundation
members. England tagged along in 1890. The Rugbeians were keen to anchor the
origins of the sport firmly onto the fields of Rugby School.
Interviewer
How did they go about their investigation and what were their conclusions?
WWE
They were aware of the Bloxam letters. Individual Rugbeian members might have
spoken to him casually when the letters were published but he died in 1888 so he
couldn’t contribute to the actual investigation which began in 1895. It was very
thorough and they managed to track down more than a dozen old boys who had
attended in the 1830s and even a couple from the 1820s. You would think that, if
my action in 1823 had marked the beginning of football as a running game (which
it had indeed become by the end of the 1830s) those people would have heard of
me. But only one, an 1820s student named Thomas Harris, claimed to have known of
me. He recalled me as a good cricketer and something of a cheat at football. Not
the best of reputations but he made no mention of any rule changes resulting
from my cheating. Quite the contrary – he remembered that running forward with
the ball in hand was strictly forbidden throughout his time at Rugby and he left
in 1828, three years after me. The students who attended in the 1830s nearly all
remembered that running forward was illegal early in the decade but became legal
in their time. None had heard of William Webb Ellis.
Interviewer
So what were the conclusions of the investigation panel?
WWE
Strangely, and against all the evidence I’ve just outlined, they concluded that
my action in one particular year, 1823, had led directly to the invention of
rugby. Here’s the text on the plaque:
“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. AD 1823”
Interviewer
So the conclusions contradicted the evidence. They had spoken to old boys who
remembered that running with the ball in the 1830s was illegal meaning that your
alleged action ten years earlier had not
led to any rule change. And yet the myth that you had picked the ball up off the
ground and run with it, thus “inventing” rugby, grew and blossomed for nearly
twenty years after the Bloxam letters.
WWE
By which time the Rugbeians had also “picked it up and run with it.” But let’s
ignore the myths and hearsay and stick to the truth. I did not pick up the ball
off the ground during a game in 1823 or any other year. I caught it many times
(legally) and sometimes dashed forward a few yards (illegally). Running with the
ball in hand remained illegal the whole time I attended Rugby.
Interviewer
And seemingly for at least another ten years after you left?
WWE
Definitely for that long, and probably longer. Running was legal by 1841 and
enshrined in the first set of written rules printed in 1845.
Interviewer
Meaning 1845 can be taken as the date of birth of rugby as a separate sport from
football? Nearly a quarter of a century after your 1823 exploits.
WWE
And even then it was still called football. It was several more decades before
it became known as rugby football – not just rugby.
Interviewer
What might have prompted Matthew Bloxam to write his letters in the first place,
so long after the alleged event?
WWE
He was a loyal ex-Rugby student and proud of it. He feared that the sport might
forget its roots once it moved beyond England. Why he chose to associate my name
with the birth of rugby will forever remain a mystery to me. But to be fair to
him, he never claimed that my action amounted to the invention of rugby. He
actually wrote three letters to the Rugby magazine, the first detailing the game
as played in his day (and mine) written in response to correspondents seeking
information of the origins of the game. It was the two later letters than
mentioned me but all they implied was that my action could have been the first
steps towards the rule change. I quoted his 1880 letter earlier and you’ll
remember the words: “Neither do I know
how this infringement of a well-known rule was followed up, or when it became,
as it is now, a standing rule.” So he’s suggesting that my action could have
been the starting point of a process that led to an eventual rule change, but
may not have been. It was the Rugbeians’ report fifteen years later that made
the much more specific assertion.
Interviewer
And the Rugbeian researchers were blindfolded by the preconceived need to
associate the origin of the sport with a single event on the sports fields at
Rugby School.
WWE
Despite the overwhelming evidence, their own evidence, to the contrary. They
were mindful that other theories on the sport’s origin were emerging, some
tracing back to Roman times. They were anxious to disprove theories of that
kind.
Interviewer
So the myth associating your name with the invention of rugby began more
accurately with the Rugbeian so-called research than with the Bloxam letters.
WWE
More accurately still, with the erection of the plaque in 1900. And an even
greater honour, a statue of me outside the school in a running position holding
the ball. But the irony is that the Rugbeian society didn’t need to associate
the origin of the sport with any individual. The game as played in the 21st
century was invented at Rugby. That’s beyond dispute. To this day the sport
carries the name of the school. What other sports are named after a school?
Surely that alone would guarantee the origin of rugby is inextricably and
permanently traceable back to the school it’s named after.
Interviewer
Well now that it’s become clear that William Webb Ellis did not invent rugby nor
was he even at the school when it was invented, do you have any theories on the
game’s actual origin.
WWE
I’d rather deal with facts than theories – mine or anyone else’s. There’s a name
you’ve probably never heard of, Jem Mackie. He attended Rugby in the late 1830s
and was remembered long after he left as the great “runner-in” with the ball in
hand. Thomas Hughes, who wrote “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” and has a better
knowledge of Rugby School history than most, was interviewed by the Rugbeian
Society and even all those years later could remember Mackie picking up the ball
and running with it, probably in 1838. He would ground the ball over the
goal-line and claim a “try” at a goal. It quickly became common practice and by
1841 running with the ball and earning “tries” was legal. Hughes attended Rugby
from 1834 to 1842 and remembered Mackie well but had never heard of me. He told
the investigators that boys were “running in” and claiming a “try” as early as
his first year, 1834. It was an illegal manoeuvre back then but seems to have
been tolerated. Jem Mackie’s superior skill at it may have prompted the later
rule change.
Interviewer
Why do you think the panel got it so wrong when all the evidence so clearly
contradicts their conclusions?
WWE
Apart from their original determination to attach the sport’s origins to Rugby
School, another factor was the “great schism” which, by no means
co-incidentally, occurred in the same year the investigation began – 1895. The
schism saw rugby league established in the north of England. The Rugby School
form of rugby attracted mainly the upper middle-class. The masses opted for
rugby league which soon became a professional code. The Rugbeians held a real
fear that League was going to take over and maybe snuff out the original game.
It was a misplaced fear. The new code was still called Rugby so the connection
with the school remained. This still leaves unexplained their need to attach the
game’s roots to the actions of a particular individual at a particular time, and
why they chose William Webb Ellis rather than Jem Mackie. But I was chosen and
they literally set their erroneous conclusions in stone by engraving them onto
the statue and plaque.
Interviewer
And your own recollections of your time at the school are crystal clear?
WWE
I know exactly what I was doing in 1823. The William Webb Ellis story is a
fabrication from start to finish.
Interviewer
Do you think it will ever be corrected?
WWE
No. Rugby School will never let it go and the whole rugby world will continue to
revel in the fantasy. It’s become legendary. Schoolboy breaks rules at football
and invents a new game. It’s a good story.
Interviewer
And the administrators of the 1980s sure believed it when they chose a name for
the World Cup trophy?
WWE
They sure did! That sealed it.
Interviewer
One last question. Is your surname Webb Ellis or just Ellis?
WWE
It’s Webb Ellis. My mum was a Webb and my dad an Ellis. Combining names was
quite common in my day.
Interviewer
It still is. Well thank you William, for your visitation and for enlightening
us.
WWE
You’re welcome. Remember, my name is on the cup just once. New Zealand is on it
three times.
Interviewer
And counting.
WWE
Good luck at the next tournament.
Interviewer
Thanks.
By John Kiley