History of Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby School, one of England's oldest and most prestigious public schools, rose to national prominence in the 1820s through the teaching methods pioneered by its headmaster, Dr Thomas Arnold, which contributed to a radical change in Public School education in England. Most of the present school buildings, near the centre of the town, date from this period. In 1823 William Webb Ellis is said to have invented Rugby Football when he picked up the ball and ran with it.
History of rugby union in Australia
Rugby began outside of Sydney first in Queensland in 1876, with the first inter-colonial match being played in Sydney in 1882. During these years the rugby that was played, was administered by the Queensland Football Association, which was the organisation administering principally the Melbourne Rules football code. Primarily due to the poor treatment rugby received by the QFA, a new organisation to oversee rugby was founded at a meeting held on 2 November 1883 at the Exchange Hotel in Brisbane. This organisation was formally constituted a decade later in 1893, as the Queensland Rugby Union.
The first rugby union club to be established in Australia was Sydney University's in 1863. A decade after the first club was formed, a body called the Southern Rugby Union was formed as a result of a meeting at the Oxford Hotel in Sydney, a Sydney competition was established, which was administered from the England Rugby headquarters at Twickenham. The first competition commenced the following year in 1865 with 6 teams.