St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
One (Start)
Transcript:
On Saturday the 28th of September 1935, Swansea RFC beat the New Zealand All Blacks, at the St Helens ground, Swansea. This not only earned them the substantial accolade of being the first club side to defeat the All Blacks, but also the honour of being the first club side to beat ‘the big three’, the touring sides of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The following audio trail shares the story of Australia’s tours to St Helens, and to Wales more generally, as well as captures the material legacy left behind. On the St Helen’s Archive website you may also find sister trails for the other members of the ‘Big Three’, a trail each for South Africa and for New Zealand.
At St Helens, the archive displays each object shared in this trail, as well as the sister trails. As such, the trails also act as a record of these displays. Each part shall take a moment to describe the highlighted objects as they are today. This trail covers a period between 1908 and 1992.
The first stop in this Australian trail, a photograph from the earliest of these wins over the ‘Big Three’, 1908. The photograph itself originates from a postcard, as such is quite small just six inches wide by four high. The contents of the photograph, the Australian Rugby Football team, sat in front of their UK base of operations, Newton Abbot in Devon. Text on the front facing bottom of the photograph reads: ‘Australian Team - The Wallabies, 1908-9’. The team gathered in front of the village hall in Newton Abbot. Interestingly, when New Zealand toured in 1905, they too based themselves at the same place.
The photograph is black and white, although we can confirm that the Australian’s wore light blue jerseys, and appear in their jerseys in the photograph, bearing the emblem of the New South Wales Rugby Union on their left breasts - a Waratah flower. The word ‘Australia’ was also emblazoned under the Waratah. The Australian team was captained by Dr. H M Moran who is pictured in the third row, fifth from the left.
This 1908 tour incorporated a total of 40 matches. The opening match in England was against a Devon County selection, ending in 24-3 to the Australian side, and the last fixture on the British leg of the tour was against Plymouth on 16th January 1909, which also resulted in a win, 15-6.
All in all, 33 matches were won in Britain with one draw and five losses. But the team also had the good fortune to be in Britain while the London Olympics were being held and they entered the rugby competition there. Unfortunately, there was only one other entrant - a Cornwall County team who played representing Great Britain. In winning this encounter on 26th October 1908 by 32-3 the tourists thus won the Olympic gold medal, "Cornwall" (in spirit but not name) taking the silver. The Australian tourists, now enjoying the sobriquet of "Wallablies", had already beaten Cornwall County on 3rd October during their tour and so, emphasised their pedigree by taking the West Country team's scalp for a second time in the same month.
Two international fixtures were played on the tour, the first was lost 6-9 to Wales on 12th December 1908 at Cardiff and the second saw the tourists beat England at Blackheath by 9-3. Of the Welsh fixtures played, Australia beat Penygraig, Neath/Aberavon, Glamorgan League, Newport and North Glamorgan. They drew 3-3 with Abertillery and lost to Llanelli, Cardiff and Swansea. The match against Swansea on Boxing Day 1908, just fourteen days after the Welsh international side’s win, saw a huge crowd of over 40,000 turn out, a record for a rugby game in the UK at this time. Swansea scored a try by Edgar Morgan and penalty by Jack Bancroft to win their first game against a major touring side - 6-0. Interestingly, of the five losses and one draw for the Wallabies, all but one loss was to Welsh sides.
This kick-started what would become this most major accolade that this trail opened with. Beginning in 1908 with Swansea’s defeat of this Australian side, going on to defeat South Africa four years later, until finally defeating New Zealand twenty-three years after that. As a bonus object for this opening part of this trail: outside St Helen’s today is a blue heritage plaque that reads: ‘St Helen’s Swansea RFC ground since 1876. First ever club to defeat Australia (1908), South Africa (1912) and New Zealand (1935)’, before repeating in Welsh. The plaque was dedicated in 2015, and commemorates the history made in this period of rugby football at Swansea RFC.
This 1908 win isn’t the last time Swansea RFC would win against the Wallabies, with other victories documented in this trail, but most particularly in the final part of this trail, a part that shares many more objects that were left behind. Until that part however, this trail will explore jerseys and a range of other objects from other Australian tours. Please do follow on to the next part to find out more. Please don’t forget to press next.