175 Years of the Development of Rugby at Durham School
As we approach our 175th Anniversary Celebrations on Saturday 18 October 2025, Development Director Andrew Beales and Archivist George Gardner take a look back across Durham School Football Club’s long history. DSFC is one of the world’s oldest rugby clubs. It is commonly accepted to be the fifth oldest club and the fourth oldest school club in existence. Remarkably, we still use the same pitch for our senior matches as we did back in 1850, yet the impact of DSFC goes well beyond our hallowed “Playground” and continues to be felt around the rugby world.
Pre-1844
The tradition of football at Durham School predates the modern game of rugby and Durham School’s move to its present site on the riverbanks in 1844. In the early years of the nineteenth century, priests at Durham Cathedral complained of ball marks left on the walls in the entrance of the School, which then stood opposite the Cathedral. This early “foot ball” was vigorous and communal rather than codified, but it was already central to school life. You can read more of this in a book called Puddings, Bullies and Squashes – to which Durham School contributed.
The Foundation of the Club
A decisive turning point came in 1850, when Rev TC Durham joined the Durham School staff and introduced the boys to the written rules agreed at Rugby in 1845. These provided a framework for what had previously been a rough local pastime, when it was too cold for cricket, and the river too high for rowing.
The name of the club, Durham School Football Club, reflects that at that time, Football was a broad church, and that there were frequent occasions until the 1890s when matches reverted to the School’s own customs. The Victorian obsession of codification was gradual. What is certain is that by 1850, the School Football Club could field a team playing by the agreed Rugby rules, and by the mid-1860s, press reports of rugby matches against Darlington and other local sides were common.
Francis and Alexander Crombie, later celebrated as the Fathers of Scottish Rugby, entered Durham School in 1852. They absorbed the new “rugby” code and, on moving to Edinburgh Academy, took with them copies of the “little red rule book”. Francis became the Academy’s first Captain of Football, while Alexander matriculated at Edinburgh University and captained the Edinburgh Academical Football Club. Their actions helped establish Rugby football in Scotland and created a link that endures in the oldest cross-border school fixture, Durham School against Edinburgh Academy.
The Key Stronghold for Rugby in the North
By the last decades of the nineteenth century, Rugby football had become a signature feature of Durham life, producing players whose influence extended well beyond the touchline. Ernest Brutton, at Durham from 1872 to 1883, captained the School in 1882, played in Varsity Matches for Cambridge in 1885 and 1886, and gained an England cap against Scotland in 1886.
Frederick Charles Lohden, in the School from 1882 to 1886, played for the 1st XV from the age of fifteen. After studying in France and Germany, he returned to play for Hartlepool, then for Blackheath and the South of England, and in 1893 scored a try on his sole England appearance against Wales. Injury ended his playing days in 1896, but he went on to serve rugby through county committees in Durham and Surrey and held senior roles in badminton and lawn tennis, becoming chairman of the Lawn Tennis Association in 1933.
Graham Campbell Kerr, a pupil from 1886 to 1890, represented the 1st XV from 1887 to 1889 and captained in his final year. Winner of the Sports Challenge Cup in 1890, he returned as an Assistant Master in 1895, remaining at Durham until 1901 while winning eight caps for Scotland between 1898 and 1900. He later became the first civilian Governor of the Sudan. The Kerr Arch (the main entrance to the School) and the Kerr Cup preserve his name.
Touring Sides
Charles Young Adamson, who attended Durham School from 1887 to 1893 and played in the 1st XV from 1890 to 1892, became a central figure on the British touring side to Australia in 1899, the forerunners of the British and Irish Lions. Selected in all twenty matches and amassing 136 points, he was widely regarded as the outstanding player of the tour. He remained in Australia to play first-class cricket for Queensland, served in the Boer War, and on returning to England in 1901 played for Bristol RFC.
Adamson was killed late in the First World War while serving with the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Salonica. His son, Charles Lodge Adamson, went on to become the influential Headmaster and rugby coach of Bow School. His brother-in-law, Lewis Vaughan Lodge uniquely among Old Dunelmians represented England at Association Football.
So influential was Durham School rugby in this late Victorian period that the famous touring side, the Barbarians, honoured Durham by playing a full side against the Old Dunelmians in 1897 – a fixture which was won by the Barbarians 18–5.
End of the Victorian Era
As the school’s rugby reputation grew, Old Dunelmians helped to spread the game’s popularity across the region, with former Durham 1st XV players influential in the history of many North East clubs. Perhaps most famously, ODs who formed Gosforth Rugby Club in 1877 chose to play in their old school colours of green and white. Part of Gosforth became the first professional rugby team in the world when they morphed into Newcastle Falcons in the 1990s. The remaining amateur part of the Gosforth team retained the green and white hoops as their regular strip, while Falcons readopted the green and white kit in 2017 to celebrate their 140th anniversary.
The late Victorian painting by famous sports artist TMM Hemy hangs in pride of place in the Headmaster’s offices – arguably as important a work as Hemy’s other famous North East sporting painting of Sunderland vs Aston Villa, which hangs in the entrance to the Stadium of Light.
The Road to War
Durham also furnished leaders who shaped the game’s character. Frederic Alderson represented England in the Home Nations Championships of 1891, 1892 and 1893. In 1893 he appeared alongside fellow Old Dunelmian, Frederick Lohden. After he retired from the game he went on to become Headmaster of the Henry Smith School in Hartlepool.
Richard Budworth, one of the original Barbarians, became Headmaster of Durham School in 1907. His muscular Christianity encouraged the flourishing of rugby, cricket and rowing. He had earlier played for England in 1891 and 1892, together with Alderson.
Robert William Bell, at Durham School from 1891 to 1896, was capped by England in 1899 and 1900. He and later returned to lead the Durham School Mission in Gateshead between 1908 and 1915.
John Warburton Sagar, a King’s Scholar and 1st XV Captain in 1897, won England caps in 1901, played for the Barbarians, and later entered political service in the Sudan. Here he eventually became Governor of Kordofan and later Wadi Halfa.
The Great War
The First World War significantly curtailed this generation of players. Alfred Frederick Maynard, a Durham 1st XV captain who won three England caps in the 1914 Five Nations, fought in Antwerp, at the Suez Canal and at Gallipoli before being killed on the Western Front in November 1916. He was the youngest of the twenty-seven England internationals who died in the conflict.
Other OD internationals who died included Arthur James Dingle. Known to all as Mud, he had been Head of School in 1910, scored a try in the 1911 Varsity Match for Oxford, and was capped for England against Ireland, France and Scotland immediately before the war. He returned to Durham as a master, played for Rosslyn Park, captained Hartlepool and represented the county, and made a final appearance for the Barbarians against a Royal Army Medical Corps XV in April 1915. He was killed defending a trench at Gallipoli on 22 August 1915.
Hugh Dingle, Arthur’s younger brother, was a medic studying in Newcastle in 1914. He had played rugby for school, Durham University and Durham County, and may well have also played in the national side had the war not intervened. He joined the Royal Navy as a junior surgeon. His death in 1916 at the Battle of Jutland left his parents bereft, with both of the Dingle brothers making the ultimate sacrifice.
Hugh’s contemporary in the 1st XV, Noel Forbes Humphreys, was the youngest Welshman ever to play for the British Lions when he toured South Africa with the side in 1910. In WWI he served as a Captain in the Tank Corps, was mentioned in despatches, and awarded the Military Cross. Noel was killed in action on 27 March 1918.
Next Time…
In the next article we will look at how DSFC players went on to shape the game between the wars, and on into the 1950s and 60s
Whenever we attempt to trace some history or other at Durham School, we do so with the knowledge that it is impossible to capture every name, every event, and every contribution. That is sadly part and parcel of being a centuries-old institution. Inevitably, some details will be overlooked and some individuals not mentioned, but this should never be taken as a dismissal of their part. This is as true for rugby as it might be for music, drama, rowing or cricket, so we apologise if someone is missed. Please do contact od@dcsf.org.uk with your questions and suggestions.
