THE FATHER OF OUR RUGBY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 945, 24 January 1911, Page 2

THE FATHER OF OUR RUGBY.

I Dtxkdjx, Jan. 23. I Mr J. IT. Chapman, headmaster jof the Arthur Street school, of i Dunedin, and one time prominent in Rugby football, is dead. | [Mr John 11. Chapman was j probably the founder of the Rugby football game in New Zealand, though the claim is disputed. Early in the ’seventies he organised the Union Club, Dunedin, : still in existence. Eor many i years he w T as the controlling hand ' of the Otago Rugby Union, at that I time acknowledged to be “ the j home and stronghold of Rugby.” ! What followed after 1592 is rather { obscure, and has, so lar, never | been publicly slated. Some Rugby j men still hold the opinion that the 1 leading spirits in the Otago Union j designed the foundation of a New I Zealand Union on their own initiI ative, but events afterwards were taken out of their hands. In those days Mr Chapman attended meetings of clubs, ami, in vigorous speeches, foreshadowed a general decadence of the amateur game if a New Zealand Union (with which was held out the tempting bait of trips to Australia and elsewhere) was set up. After the setting up of the New Zealand Union, the late Mr Chapman retired from ab active participation in the game. He w r as elected year after year as president or vice-president of the Union Club, and offers of office on the executive of the Otago Union were frequently held out to him, but he regarded the affair from first to last (to use his own w T ords) as ‘‘a matter of conscience,” and never even acknowledged receipt of letters notifying him that he had been elected to any office. He thenceforth devoted himself entirely to his work as first assistant, and subsequently headmaster of one of the largest of the Dunedin schools, and always thereafter turned a deaf ear to those who asked him to “ write up ” his reminiscences of Rugby. In 1903 he had the misfortune to rupture a blood vessel in the head, and, after lecovering, grew more reticent than ever. In general demeanour he was a man of powerful personality and address.]