Albert Henry Baskerville
Albert Henry Baskerville was a
Wellington postal clerk, a
rugby union forward, author of the book "
Modern Rugby Football : New Zealand Methods ; Points for the Beginner, the Player, the Spectator" and a pioneer of
rugby league.
In 1907, he persuaded a group of
New Zealand rugby union players to tour
Great Britain, playing under the new professional
Northern Union code. Baskerville's motives appear to have been mainly financial; a recent rugby union tour of Great Britain had netted handsome profits, and he hoped to do likewise.
Encyclopedia
Albert Henry Baskerville was a
Wellington postal clerk, a
rugby union forward, author of the book "
Modern Rugby Football : New Zealand Methods ; Points for the Beginner, the Player, the Spectator" and a pioneer of
rugby league.
In 1907, he persuaded a group of
New Zealand rugby union players to tour
Great Britain, playing under the new professional
Northern Union code. Baskerville's motives appear to have been mainly financial; a recent rugby union tour of Great Britain had netted handsome profits, and he hoped to do likewise. It is generally believed that Baskerville first became aware of the profits to be made from such a venture while he was working at the Wellington Post Office: a colleague had a coughing fit and dropped a British newspaper. Baskerville picked it up and chanced upon a report about a Northern Union match that over 40,000 people had attended. Baskerville wrote to the NU asking if they would host a NZ touring party. The team was dubbed the
All Golds by the New Zealand press, a derogatory pun on the New Zealand rugby union team's nickname of
All Blacks.
He contracted
pneumonia on the ship taking the touring party back from Britain, and died aged 25 in
Brisbane on 20th May 1908. He is commemorated by the naming of the Baskerville Shield, the trophy awarded when
Great Britain and
New Zealand meet in test series.
