Rugby
Rugby is a market town in east Warwickshire, now famous as the birthplace of the game of rugby. References to this sport dominate the town with the name ‘Webb Ellis’ emblazoned everywhere.
William Webb Ellis has been credited with being the inventor of rugyy whilst being a pupil at Rugby school. According to tradition, he picked up the ball and ran with it during a school football match in 1823, creating the rugby style of play. Apparently, this story only emerged four years after Webb Ellis’s death and doubts have been raised about the claim with investigations unable to find any evidence to support it. Former pupils, Thomas Harris and his brother John, who had left Rugby in 1828 and 1832 respectively recalled that handling of the ball was strictly forbidden. Thomas testified that Webb Ellis had been known as someone to take an ‘unfair advantage at football’. However, the story obviously appeals to fans of the game and a statue of Webb Ellis proudly stands outside the school for all to see!
Rugby School is also famed for its literary connections. Thomas Hughes (statue pictured at the top) whose novel ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ was based on his own experiences at the school which he attended from 1834 to 1842. This story appalled me as a child with its sadistic bullying and corporal punishment; however, the book’s popularity appears to have endured with a new film version appearing in 2005 which seems to have been largely filmed at the school with pupils featuring as extras! Hughes is commemorated with a statue standing outside one of the school buildings. Unveiled on the 24th June 1899, it shows the man, book in hand, gazing off into the distance.
I was only in Rugby for a very busy weekend attending the FCBG annual conference so had little time to explore. However, I was determined to locate the statue of Rupert Brooke and one which I believe is called ‘The Writer’s Rest’. Rugby could really do with adding some signposts to help its visitors who want to find anything other than places related to the sport! The Writers’ Rest is a stone chaise longue in the gardens of Percival Guildhall which is surrounded by stone books and carved paving stones, focusing on works by authors, many ex-pupils of the school, linked to the town, including Gillian Cross and Anthony Horowitz. It was very hard to find and I believe there is another stone seat somewhere in the town which I could not locate!
Rupert Brooke was born in Rugby in 1887 and began writing poetry at a very young age. Son of a house master at the school, Brooke is best known for his war poetry- and for being ‘the handsomest man in England.’ After attending Rugby school, he spent the time between his graduation from Cambridge in 1909 and the start of World War I in 1914 writing and travelling. When the First World War broke out, he immediately volunteered for service and joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. Stationed in Antwerp, Belgium, he produced his best-known poetry, the group of five war sonnets entitled ‘Nineteen Fourteen’, during this time. The last of these five is perhaps his best known poem, ‘The Soldier’ which opens with the lines:
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
Sadly, Brooke died of blood poisoning on April 23rd 1915 on a hospital ship anchored off the Greek island of Skyros. Buried there, he is remembered on the Poets of the First World War Memorial in Westminster Abbey.