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Summer 2013, Volume 3, Issue 4

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Summer 2013, Volume 3, Issue 4 . Poetry Notes Summer 2013 Volume 3, Issue 4 ISSN 1179-7681 Quarterly Newsletter of PANZA both rugby and cricket and was an Inside this Issue Welcome influential rugby theorist, law-maker, coach, referee and administrator, a Hello and welcome to issue 12 of competitive athlete and an athletics Welcome Poetry Notes, the newsletter of PANZA, official, and was prominent in horse 1 the newly formed Poetry Archive of racing as a starter and a skilled Rowan Gibbs on William New Zealand Aotearoa. handicapper. He was also a talented Wills Robinson Poetry Notes will be published quarterly amateur singer and actor. and will include information about In rugby he was an important pioneer of Classic New Zealand goings on at the Archive, articles on the game in Auckland and an innovator poetry by O E Hugo historical New Zealand poets of interest, of wing-forward and three-quarter play. 5 occasional poems by invited poets and a He says himself: “I practically record of recently received donations to introduced Rugby football into the Comment on Richard A the Archive. Province of Auckland, in 1871”, and on 6 Singer by Niel Wright The newsletter will be available for free the 1905 All Black tour he was called download from the Poetry Archive’s “one of the ‘fathers’ of Rugby football website: in New Zealand”; an Australian Poetry Archive road trip: Hawke’s Bay obituary called him “one of the founders 9 http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com of Rugby football under the Southern Cross”. Robert J Pope book His rugby and cricket careers are noted 10 launch report Rowan Gibbs on in passing in books on those sports but his 1905 booklet Rugby Football in New New publication by William Wills Zealand, first published as a series of 11 PANZA member Robinson articles in the London newspaper The Pall Mall Gazette in October and November 1905, and in early November NZ publication of Cameron as a one penny 16-page booklet, is La Follette’s poetry Wellington bibliographer and never mentioned and seems to be genealogist Rowan Gibbs writes on unknown locally. Of the four copies Donate to PANZA through early New Zealand poet and sportsman recorded in libraries none are in New PayPal W W Robinson author of Rugby Zealand and it is not included in the Football in New Zealand (1905) standard bibliographies. The booklet Recently received recently republished in a new edition goes unnoticed in the many books, old donations with introduction and notes on the text and new, written on the 1905 tour, by Rowan. despite references in New Zealand About the Poetry Archive newspapers to the publication of the PANZA William Wills Robinson (1847-1929) original articles and even a review of the booklet in the Auckland Star. The PO Box 6637 is a significant figure in the history of only modern reference to it I have found Marion Square New Zealand sport. In his twenty two is in an article by an Australian Wellington 6141 years in New Zealand he represented and captained Thames and Auckland in academic who no doubt saw the copy at the National Library of Australia. Summer 2013 The 1905 articles and booklet are in fact Tour of the Auckland Representatives to Not long after his death Sarah and a rewriting in part of an article on the Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, and young William returned to her home history of Auckland Rugby which he Wellington (Auckland, 1874) and town in England, near destitute. contributed under the pen name “An Pavilion Echoes from the South, 1884-5, Old Half Back” to the Auckland by The Twelve (Auckland, 1885), on the Football Annual for 1887 and 1888, the Auckland cricketers’ 1884-5 tour. III latter revised and expanded. This article William spent nine years at Epsom has been drawn on, directly or College, where he played both cricket indirectly, by most historians of II and football, leaving at seventeen in Auckland rugby. William was born on June 17th 1847 at 1864. It seems he then remained in Robinson’s other writings include a 10 Ann Street, Birmingham, England, Northamptonshire, possibly farming regular racing column, ‘Notes by the home of his parents John Robinson, with his stepfather, as there is a Spread Eagle’, in the Auckland a surgeon, and Sarah Mary Robinson, probable record of him playing cricket Observer and over the years he née Lee. In 1855, at the age of eight, there in June 1866, but on February 9th published quite a number of sporting William, living in Long Buckby in 1867 we find him arriving in Auckland, poems under various pseudonyms in Northamptonshire (his mother’s at the age of nineteen, sailing on the magazines and newspapers, including birthplace), was admitted to Epsom England which left London on October The Sporting and Dramatic Review, the College in Surrey as one of the original 19th 1866. He is a saloon passenger, Auckland Star, and The Observer in “Foundationers”, to be educated, travelling by the most expensive New Zealand, and The Sportsman, The clothed and taken care of entirely at the passage: his mother had remarried in Sporting Life, The Sporting Times, College’s expense. The voting papers 1862, to a wealthy farmer. Fry’s Magazine and The Daily Mail in for his admission provide some Soon he is in Thames, probably drawn England. interesting information: by the rush to the goldfield which He planned to publish a collection of opened on August 1st 1867. The father, John Robinson, MRCS these poems in 1916 but it did not Unfortunately virtually no Thames and LSA, followed his profession appear, probably a victim of the newspapers survive before 1874, so five years in England and then, wartime paper restrictions. The when exactly he settled there remains under pressure of adverse collection was finally published in uncertain. There is no mention of him at circumstances, emigrated to the 1922, as Racing & Sporting Rhymes (in the Caledonian games of New Year State of Illinois, US, where he died British and Empire Climes), with the 1868, the first organised sporting event in June 1854, leaving a widow, with author given only as ‘“Akarana” in Thames, but on February 12th 1868, health hopelessly shattered, and (W.W.R.)’, printed, no doubt at his own a year after his arrival in New Zealand, about £50, the wreck of their expense, by Perkin & Co. in he is playing cricket for Thames against property. The mother hopes to Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, the Auckland Peripatetics, so was support herself by needlework, but where he was living. almost certainly living in Thames by has no means of providing for the The fifty-three poems in its 88 pages are then. child. nearly all on horse racing: of the others, There was more than one W. Robinson one is on athletics, three on sport in This is supported by the information living in Thames at this period, but he general, three are tributes to Australian that can be found in American records. seems to have been the only W.W. poets (Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, The family appear in the 1850 United Robinson, so he was very likely the and dedication to Adam Lindsay States Census living in Galena City, Jo possessor of mining rights on the Gordon), and three are on rugby: ‘The Daviess County, Illinois: John Karaka field dated 24 July 1868 and 26 Seven Ages of the Footballer’, ‘How Robinson, physician, age 33; wife November 1869. it’s done’, and ‘Farewell:– Kia Ora te Sarah, age 26; son William, age 3, all He may also have farmed: a crown grant Pango!’. There are no cricket poems in born England. in favour of a William Robinson was the book, although Robinson is credited Now a picturesque historic town of approved in Auckland in January 1868 with the authorship of a “stanza” on a 3,500 people, Galena (named after the and in July 1870 Mr W.W. Robinson snoring fellow player in On the Tented natural mineral form of lead sulphide) was elected a member of the New Fields of the South, 1882, a light- was then a booming lead mining centre Zealand Agricultural Association in hearted account of the Auckland cricket and a busy river port and commercial Auckland. Many years later, in the 1901 team’s southern tour in 1882-3. My hub, which attracted many British England and Wales census, he gave his feeling is that the poems in the book are migrants. profession as “retired farmer”. all the work of the anonymous author, And in the burial records of the Old He is listed on the Thames Electoral ‘The Childe’. Two cricket works to City Cemetery, West Galena Township, Roll for 1875-6 and 1876-7 with a which he very likely contributed I have we find recorded the death of Dr John dwelling in Owen St, Grahamstown, not yet been able to see: The Auckland Robinson on June 22nd 1854, age 32, and at some point he became manager Cricketers’ Trip to the South: A by suicide: perhaps he lost his funds in a or owner of Gregory Waller’s Complete History of the Late Successful failed mining investment? 2 . Poetry Archive tobacconist and sporting goods shop in cricketer will be remembered by show in his window’ (AS 24 Mar.1881 Brown Street in Grahamstown. most of the public to whom the p.20), and also on show in the window He played cricket and rugby in Thames, cricketing portion of his was “a handsome bat, presented by Mr captaining both teams, was involved in advertisement is addressed, and his C. Sharland of London, as a prize for athletics and horse racing, and often intimate knowledge of all that the highest average scorer in Auckland appeared in local shows and plays.
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