Oxford University Rugby Football Club
In Memoriam
1914-18 and 1939-45
The approach of Remembrance Sunday provides an opportunity for the current players, staff and supporters of OURFC to reflect on the sacrifices of the players of the past.
A total of 41 Blues from the club died during the two world wars, a terrible level of loss from what was a small body of players. There is no permanent memorial to these players at Iffley Road, perhaps because each is listed on the war memorials within their individual colleges. However, their photographs hang in the clubhouse, bearing quiet testimony to those who were lost and their heroism, both on and off the rugby pitch.
As their college affiliations, playing careers and biographies are studied, these collectively reflect changes within the game of rugby union and, more widely, the place of sport within British society. Both during their time as students and after leaving the university, many of the pre-1914 players continued to play the sport at the principal clubs of the day, such as Blackheath, Harlequins and Richmond. Some like John Raphael (St John’s) gained Blues and enjoyed first class careers in other sports, such as cricket, or Ronald Poulton Palmer (Balliol) with Hockey. Those who gained their Blues after 1918, had less opportunity to perform at elite level in multiple sports, probably as the demands of academia changed.
Some of the players were household names to their contemporaries and remain relatively well known to this day. These include Ronnie Poulton Palmer, the captain of the England team in 1914, whose last words as he lay mortally injured were reported to be, “I shall never play at Twickenham again.” Also, Alexander Obolensky (Brasenose), known as ‘the Flying Prince’, who died in a plane crash in 1940, serving his adoptive country in the RAF, following his representing England four times in inter-war international matches. In 1936, he scored two tries on his international debut at ‘HQ’ against New Zealand, the first time that England had beaten the All Blacks. His first try was regarded at the time as one of the greatest individual scores ever witnessed.
Others are less well known, for example Thomas Tanner of Trinity College who won a Blue in 1931, and was lost when his ship the S.S. Ceramic was sunk in 1942. He played his club rugby for Bristol, and as a conscientious objector, choose to serve in the Friends Ambulance Unit, a Quaker organisation.
Just over half of the 41 players were internationals, 22 of whom gained 132 caps between them. It is only recently that the International Rugby Board has awarded caps for the Combined British touring side to Argentina in 1910, the first test match played in that country. John Raphael of St John’s, killed in 1917, was the captain of the Lions team.
Predictably, differences between the two conflicts are reflected in the grim details of the casualties. A majority of those killed during the course of World War One were serving in the army and died in Belgium and France. With the greater focus on aerial warfare from 1939, many Blues served in the Royal Air Force, a part of the armed forces that vastly increased in size compared to the earlier conflict.
It is noteworthy that there may have been others connected to the club who also died during the world wars, since the information readily available focuses on those who won Blues. The 2014 Varsity match at Twickenham provided an opportunity to remember those 55 Blues from Oxford and Cambridge who died in the First World War.
How best to remember these former players in the future? Beyond recalling their names each year, perhaps by continuing to support rugby union at Oxford in various ways, be it through helping current students to play the game while at the University and supporting OURFC long after playing days are over.
Each name represents its own unique level of tragedy and sadness for the family and friends of those who were lost. I trust it’s apt to finish with these lines from the poem Looking Forward by Geoffrey Winthrop Young:
There will be voices whispering down these ways
the while one wanderer is left to hear;
and the young life and laughter of old days
shall wake undying echoes
---
Mark Hathaway
(Kellogg 1995)
Sources:
In Memoriam OURFC 1914-1918 and 1939-45 annotated photographs in the OURFC clubhouse
David Frost, The Bowring Story of the Varsity Match (London, 1988)
Alex Mead, 150 Years of Oxford University Rugby Football Club (London, 2019)
O.L. Owen, The History of the Rugby Football Union (London, 1955)
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