page_title: Alfred Hamersley
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Hamersley / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Alfred St. George Hamersley, the solicitor, entrepreneur and rugby union international, in military uniform from a picture taken before 1905.
context_page_description: Alfred St. George Hamersley was a nineteenth-century solicitor and entrepreneur of great renown, an English MP, and an English rugby union international who played in the first ever international match. He went on to captain his country's team, and later was instrumental in establishing the sport in the south of New Zealand and in British Columbia.
context_section_description: Alfred Hamersley was born in Great Haseley, Oxfordshire, the son of Hugh Hamersley JP, DL (1813–1884) and Mary Anne Phillpa Edwards (d. 1877). Initially living at Haseley House, Great Haseley, he moved to Church Manor House, Pyrton, Oxford prior to 1861 where his father had inherited the manor that had been in the family since 1781. Alfred was not to inherit the manor. Rather, it passed to his younger brother Edward Samuel in 1884 at which time Alfred was living in New Zealand. Pyrton manor did not revert to the older line of Alfred, but rather in 1909, Edward's widow gave the manor to the son of her husband's sister, Major Hugh C. C. Ducat, who took the name Ducat Hamersley and whose son, Colonel Hugh Ducat Hamersley, inherited in 1945. In the Pyrton parish church are a number of monuments in the nave mostly to members of the Hamersley family. One of these is a brass tablet, designed by Eric Gill, to Col. Alfred St. George Hamersley, M.P.
  Hamersley was educated at Marlborough College and at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After finishing his education moved to London where he became a Barrister-at-law in the Middle Temple in 1872.
  In 1874 he emigrated to New Zealand where he married Miss Isabella Snow of Wellington. Here he practiced law for about 15 years in South Canterbury. He also took a particular interest in military matters, taking command a battery of artillery and appointed to a command a contingent at Parihaka on the last outbreak of trouble between Māori and pākehā in the North Island. He is created with introducing the game of rugby to the youth of South Canterbury. He also founded the New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase Club.
  In 1888 he and his family moved to Vancouver where he is credited as being the city's first solicitor. He became legal advisor to Vancouver City Corporation and was active in local business and athletics. As in New Zealand his zeal for rugby led to him joining the Vancouver Football (Rugby) Club and he eventually became the first president of the British Columbia Rugby Union at its inaugural meeting in 1889. His sporting interests went beyond rugby and he also founded the Amateur Athletic Club of British Columbia.
  He ceased to practise law in British Columbia when, in the Vancouver Courts an act abolishing the use of wigs in Court was passed. As a strong supporter of everything British, Hamersley's opinion was that this was an American innovation and one he refused to honour. It was in Vancouver that he became interested in real estate and bought 19,500 acres (79 km²) of land, sub-divided it and attracted settlers to an area now known as North Vancouver on the other side of the Burrard Inlet. For this reason the first municipal ferry was named 'St George' in his honour. He also once sold some Mount Pleasant property to the writer Rudyard Kipling, a fellow freemason. It is said that on one occasion when Rudyard Kipling paid him a visit he found a note pinned to Hamersley's door saying 'Out on Business', a private joke because 'Business' was the name of his horse. Between 1903 and 1905 he had built an estate home in North Vancouver which still stands today having been designated in 1977 by the city as 'Heritage' to recognize its distinguished history.
   In 1905, he decided to retire back to England and a banquet was held on the eve of his departure at the North Vancouver Hotel. At the banquet Hamersley's speech was marked out by his professing the virtues of sport and its benefits to both community and the British Empire. He said that "The social side of life and sport were infinitely better than stem officialdom to build up a community. To build North Vancouver as she ought to be money was nothing compared with good fellowship, manliness and the love of sport. Were all brought up in a manly way they could play the game and play it well. If we can in our little community infuse manliness of sport and square dealing we would be helping the empire as a whole."
  On his return to England in 1905 he soon became a well-known figure in Oxfordshire, due in the main to his electioneering on b
caption: Alfred St George Hamersley in military uniform
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