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Concept
English public school football games
Summary
During the early modern era pupils, former pupils and teachers at English public schools developed and wrote down the first codes of football, most notably the Eton College (1815) and Aldenham school (1825) football rules. The best-known of these is rugby football (1845). British public schools football also directly influenced the rules of association football.
Private schools ("public schools" in England and Wales), mainly attended by boys from the more affluent upper, upper-middle, and professional classes, are widely credited with three key achievements in the creation of modern codes of football. First, the evidence suggests that, during the 16th century, they transformed the popular, but violent and chaotic, "mob football" into organised team sports that were beneficial to schoolboys. Second, many early references to football in literature were recorded by people who had studied at these schools, showing they were familiar with the game. Finally, in the 19th century, former English public school boys, in a meeting organised by two old-boys of Shrewsbury, were the first to write down formal codes of rules in order to enable matches to be played between different schools. These versions of football rules were the basis of both the Cambridge Rules and the subsequent rules of association football, of which only one copy survives in the library of Shrewsbury.
That football were probably played at English public schools from earliest times is suggested by early references to such games being played by students at university. In later centuries there is no doubt that football games played at school were taken by former students to university. The earliest reference to ball games at English Universities comes from 1303 when "Thomas of Salisbury, a student of Oxford University, found his brother Adam dead, and it was alleged that he was killed by Irish students, whilst playing the ball in the High Street towards Eastgate". The earliest specific reference to football (pila pedalis) at university comes in 1555 when it was outlawed at St John's College, Oxford.
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