page_title: Rugby union in Canada
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rugby union in Canada / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Toronto Varsity rugby team, Canadian champions.
context_page_description: Rugby union is a moderately popular sport in Canada; it is quite strong as a participation sport, particularly in several hotspots like British Columbia, Atlantic Canada, and Ontario but does not attract the same level of spectator support yet, likely because the CFL's popular brand of Canadian Football is still similar to rugby in many ways, whilst also being the dominant football code in the country. Rugby Canada is the administrative body for rugby union in Canada. Every province also has its own union.
  Canada has around 26,000 seniors and twice as many junior players spread across the country, the leading domestic competitions are the Americas Rugby Championship, a cross-border regional competition including the United States, Argentina and Uruguay the Rugby Canada National Junior Championship for under-20 players organised solely within Canada by Rugby Canada, the sports governing body, and the Canadian Rugby Championship, the top level of club rugby in the country.
  Canada is classified by World Rugby as a tier two rugby nation.
context_section_description: There is a considerable overlap between the early history of rugby in Canada, and the origins of Canadian football.
  Early forms of rugby football were being played in Canada from 1823 onwards, in east Canadian towns such as Halifax, Montreal and Toronto.
  Rugby football  proper in Canada dates back to the 1860s. Introduction of the game and its early growth is usually credited to settlers from Britain and the British army and navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Esquimalt, British Columbia.
  In 1864 the first recorded game of rugby in Canada took place in Montreal among artillery men. It is most likely that rugby got its start in British Columbia in the late 1860s or early 1870s when brief mentions of "football" appeared in print.
  F. Barlow Cumberland and Fred A. Bethune first codified rules for rugby football in Canada, in 1865 at Trinity College, Toronto, and the first proper Canadian game of rugby took place in 1865 when officers of an English regiment played local civilians, mainly from McGill University.
  Rugby is also an ancestor of Canadian football, currently its main competitor. A "running game", resembling rugby, was taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868. By the late 19th century, the game was popular in Vancouver on the west coast.
  Early Canadian rugby clubs included the following:
  Montreal FC, founded 1868.
  Halifax FC, founded 1870.
  Winnipeg FC, founded 1879
  Vancouver RFC, founded 1889.
  The first major figure in the introduction of rugby to Canada was Alfred St. George Hamersley of Marlborough, an England international who had played in the first Calcutta Cup match in 1871, and he helped establish the game in British Columbia.  The game took root there, and as the Canadian Encyclopedia says:
  "Vancouver, which, owing to its favourable climate and strong British tradition, became the game's stronghold."
  The first recorded game in British Columbia was played on Vancouver Island in 1876, between members of the Royal Navy and the Army. It was played regularly after this in Victoria by local players and sailors on the British ships stationed at Esquimalt.
  The first club was formed in 1868. At that time no international agreed set of rules existed and the Rugby Football Union of England would not publish its official set of rules until 1871. Shortly after the game in Montreal, Trinity College, Toronto published the first set of Canadian rugby rules.
  The Canada RFU was founded in 1882, and administered Canadian football - after this, Canadian rugby fell back to a provincial level, taking administrative directions directly from the Rugby Football Union in England. Despite such encroachments, rugby remained popular in some parts of Canada, notably British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario, particularly around Toronto.
  As Canada's two main languages are English and French, it has long been influenced by not only the Commonwealth, but the French rugby community.
  As early as 1902, a Canadian XV toured the British Isles. And in 1908, the British Columbia rugby union team travelled to California to play the All Blacks.
  There was a brief resurgence in the sport, but that was halted with the onset of World War I. From 1914 to 1919, only in British Columbia and Nova Scotia were there the numbers for semi-regular rugby. In most other areas the game was not played on a regular basis. It has been suggested that some kept rugby alive during the period in an effort to boost morale during the war.
  Following World War I, there was an increase in rugby in Canada, as servicemen rejoined their previous clubs. In 1919, a Canadian Services team, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, took part in an Inter-Services Championship played in Great Britain. The Championship consisted of matches played between six service teams from Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, with the final played at Twickenham. The Rugby Union of Canada was formed in 1929, which was followed by a tour of Japan by a Canadian side.
  During World War II the sport was only played on a limited basis, with most games being played involving mainly
caption: Toronto Varsity rugby team, champions of Canada, c. 1906
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