Rugby in Featherstone before 1889

The early history of Rugby in Featherstone.

On January 26 1871 twenty one progressive Rugby clubs met at the Pall Mall Hotel in London to draw up 'Rules of the Game' and decided to call their governing body The Rugby Football Union. We can see this as the beginning of Rugby as an organised sport. Rugby made its way to Featherstone at a time when the village became a coal town and the surroundings were less salubrious than the Pall Mall Hotel. Just off the main Wakefield to Pontefract road stood a beer house called The New Inn, on a street called Phipps Street, that was named after the first landlord Thomas Phipps. Sports ranging from athletics to boxing, cricket and hare coursing were held on some rough grassland at the back of that beer house and this is where, in the shadow of the coal mines and slag heaps, the first rugby matches in this town were played.

Coal had been mined here on a small scale since the middle ages, but coal mining on an industrial scale started in 1868 with the sinking of shafts at a pit that became known as Featherstone Main and later in 1871 when a new mine was opened called Ackton Hall Colliery. Before this time, the population of Featherstone was a few hundred souls who mainly worked the farmland. By 1881, the population was around 6,000, the majority of whom had flocked here to find work in the mines. The first chosen sport of the miners was cricket and their were teams at The Bradley Arms, Purston Church and one that named themselves Featherstone Victoria. In 1883 a cricket team called Featherstone and Purston United was formed and the following year desirous of continuing with sport through the winter months, United formed a rugby team.

Featherstone and Purston United 1884-1887.

In 1883 Reuben Johnson, an Uncle to George Johnson the founder of Featherstone Rovers, took over as landlord of the New Inn beer house and enlarged the premises to cater for the huge influx of thirsty colliers who were moving to hastily built terraced houses in the vicinity. More importantly, he helped to form the earliest Featherstone rugby club. Featherstone and Purston United played their first game on Christmas Day 1884 on the fields at the back of The New Inn against Methley and won. Two days later they travelled to Wakefield to play a Club called Britannia and they won that one as well. They arranged friendly fixtures against local sides like Normanton Tradesmen, Horbury Bridge Ironworks and Ferrybridge. Over two full seasons that followed they had reasonable success. Walt Schofield, a renowned local athlete who had run at the famous Sheffield Handicaps was one of United's star players. The club struggled to arrange attractive fixtures and failed to pull in the crowds. It seems they fulfilled their last fixture on March 17 1887 against Wakefield St Austins and then disbanded, though they did lay a foundation for the next Featherstone club who took on their ground and one who went on to become a real force in the game.

By Ian Clayton