William Webb Ellis was born in
Salford,
Lancashire, and was the youngest of three sons of James Ellis, a cornet in the
7th Dragoon Guards. The eldest son, James, died aged three, and the second son, named Thomas, was of
Dunchurch,
Warwickshire, and he became a surgeon. William's father James was married for a second time in
Exeter in 1804 to Ann, daughter of William Webb, a surgeon, of
Alton, Hampshire. His paternal grandfather was from
Pontyclun in
South Wales, a descendant of the Ellis family of Kiddal Hall, just off the
A64 near
Potterton,
West Riding of Yorkshire. William's mother, Mrs Ellis, was in receipt of an allowance of £30 from His Majesty's Royal Bounty in recognition of her husband's service, she decided to move to
Rugby, Warwickshire, so that William and his elder brother, Thomas, would receive an education at
Rugby School with no cost as a local foundationer (i.e. a pupil living within a radius of 10 miles of the Rugby Clock Tower). He attended the school in Town House from 1816 to 1825 and was recorded as being a good scholar and
cricketer, although it was noted that he was "rather inclined to take unfair advantage at cricket". The incident in which William Webb Ellis supposedly caught the ball in his arms during a football match (which was allowed) and ran with it (which was not) is supposed to have happened in the latter half of 1823. After leaving Rugby in 1826, he went to
Brasenose College, Oxford, aged 20. He played
cricket for his college, and for
Oxford University against
Cambridge University in a match in 1827. He graduated with a B.A. in 1829 and received his M.A. in 1831. He entered the
Church and became chaplain of St George's Chapel,
Albemarle Street, London (closed ), and then
rector of
St Clement Danes in the
Strand. He became well known as a
low church evangelical clergyman. In 1855, he became rector of
Magdalen Laver in
Essex. A picture of him (the only known portrait) appeared in the
Illustrated London News in 1854 after he gave a particularly stirring sermon on the subject of the
Crimean War. He never married and died in the south of France in 1872, leaving an estate of £9,000, mostly to various charities. His grave in
le cimetière du vieux château at
Menton in
Alpes Maritimes was rediscovered by
Ross McWhirter in 1958, was renovated by the Riviera Hash House Harriers in 2003 and is now maintained by the
French Rugby Federation. ==Legend==