William Webb Ellis (24 November 1806 – 24 February 1872) was an English Anglican clergyman who, by tradition, has been credited as the inventor of rugby football while a pupil at Rugby School. 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 first-hand evidence, and is discounted by most rugby historians as an origin myth.

The Webb Ellis Cup is presented to the winners of the Rugby World Cup. 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. William's mother, Mrs Ellis, was in receipt of an allowance of £30 from His Majesty's Royal Bounty in recognition of her husband's service, she decided to move to Rugby, Warwickshire, so that William and his elder brother, Thomas, would receive an education at Rugby School 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 cricketer, 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 for his college, and for Oxford University against Cambridge University in a match in 1827. He graduated with a B.A. in 1829 and received his M.A. in 1831. He entered the Church and became chaplain of St George's Chapel, Albemarle Street, London (closed ), and then rector of St Clement Danes in the Strand. He became well known as a low church evangelical clergyman. In 1855, he became rector of Magdalen Laver in Essex. 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 in 1958, was renovated by the Riviera Hash House Harriers in 2003 and is now maintained by the French Rugby Federation.

Legend

Origin

thumb|right|upright|Webb-Ellis carries the ball during a school football match played in 1823. According to legend, this action created the rugby style of play

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.

Jem Mackie

An article by Gordon Rayner in The Sunday Telegraph 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. 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:

See also

  • Abner Doubleday, sometimes apocryphally credited with inventing baseball
  • Tom Wills, attended Rugby School and pioneered Australian rules football
  • Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum, museum in Rugby named after Ellis

References

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General

  • Richard Lindon inventor of the "Oval" ball, the rubber bladder and the Brass Hand pump
  • Ron Schuler's Parlour Tricks: Fine Disregard of the Rules
  • www.telegraph.co.uk