This page provides a curated chronological list of known open rugby clubs from throughout the world as at the formative time up to and about the establishment of the Rugby Football Union in London in 1871.

It correctly prioritises clubs whose membership was open (i.e. community/non-institutional clubs) and excludes the teams of a school, university, hospital, or similar institution, or ‘old boys’ thereof.

The list has been prepared with the greatest care and attention, but may not be complete, nor necessarily free from debate and contention.

The biggest “tell” of a rugby club’s true vintage is in its name—the earliest pioneers were solely an “FC” (Football Club), rather than “RUC” (Rugby Union Club) or “RC” (Rugby Club) and so on. Such as Sale FC, West of Scotland FC, Wallaroo FC and Hull FC.

In Australia’s two colonies where rugby was the dominant code, the convention of naming a rugby club as just an “FC” prevailed until the end of the 19th century, perhaps longer in the regions. Conversely, in the other colonies these “FC” clubs are Australian rules clubs.

Story written & researched by Sean Fagan ©

RUGBY’S FIRST CLUBS: A COMPENDIUM, 1857-1872

Year	Club Name	Country / Region	Key Historical Context & Notes
1857	Liverpool (later Liverpool St Helens)	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Officially formed on 19 December 1857; universally recognised as the world’s first open community rugby club.
1858	Blackheath	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	The oldest independent open club in continuous, unbroken existence.
1858	Barnes	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	A foundational open community side that played an early pivotal role in London’s code evolution.
1860	Manchester	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Maintained formal continuity from 1860, although documentation shows they played their historic first open match against Liverpool in 1857.
1861	Sale	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Pioneering club anchoring community rugby in Greater Manchester.
1861	Richmond	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Formed as a suburban open side; later became a core pillar of the pre-RFU structural era.
1863	Civil Service	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	RFU founder member. Open to civil servants (profession-linked but not a closed institutional side). Still exists today as CS Stags 1863.
1865	Bath	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Established early community-based rugby prominence in the West Country.
1865	West of Scotland	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland	The oldest conventional open town/community club north of the border.
1865	Ravenscourt Park	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Short-lived open London club (many early players Old Rugbeians but membership not restricted). RFU founder. Disbanded c.1878–80.
1865	Wimbledon Hornets	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	First recorded match October/November 1865. RFU founder. Continues today as Wimbledon RFC.
1866	Harlequins	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Originally founded as an open club under the name Hampstead Football Club before reconstituting.
1867	Wasps	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	A major London suburban open club; notoriously missed the 1871 RFU founding meeting due to a pub venue confusion.
1867	Twickenham	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Established the sport in the community that would later become the historic home of English rugby.
1867	West Kent	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Open suburban club initially playing both football codes. RFU founder. Ceased playing rugby c.1886.
1868	North of Ireland	🇮🇪 Ireland (Ulster)	The oldest open, non-university community side on the island of Ireland.
1868	Brighton	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Anchored the early growth of independent town club rugby on the south coast.
1868	Kilmarnock	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland	A crucial early non-institutional alternative to the major city clubs.
1868	Edinburgh Wanderers	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland	Formed strictly as an open community club to counter the school/academical dominance in the city.
1868	Gipsies	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Open London club (founded by Tonbridge old boys but membership not restricted to them). RFU founder. Disbanded c.1880–83.
1869	Preston Grasshoppers	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Landmark northern community club that quickly became a hub for the sport in Lancashire.
1869	Clapham Rovers	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Explicitly open hybrid club (played both rugby and association rules). RFU founder. Survived into the early 20th century.
1870	Wallaroo	🇦🇺 Australia	Australia’s first dedicated rugby club. Founded in Sydney by English public school expats; played the country’s first proper rugby rules match in June 1870. (Defunct).
1870	Ipswich	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Established open town rugby in East Anglia.
1870	Dublin Wanderers	🇮🇪 Ireland	The oldest surviving open community club in the Republic of Ireland.
1870	Nelson	🇳🇿 New Zealand	Formed as a town club in 1868 playing hybrid rules, then in 1870 adopted Rugby School rules.
1870	Burton	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	A classic English town-based club that expanded rugby footprint into the Midlands.
1870	Leeds St Johns	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Initially church-backed but quickly became an unrestricted community open town club; the original root of the modern Leeds Rhinos rugby league.
1870	Wellington	🇳🇿 New Zealand	“The Axemen” remain New Zealand’s oldest continuous rugby club since its inception.
1871	Ealing	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Formed in West London right at the dawn of the official RFU era.
1871	Worcester	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Founded as a completely open, non-institutional town club; direct ancestor of the modern Worcester rugby lineage.
1871	Streatham	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Expanded the fast-growing South London suburban open-club network.
1871	Neath	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales	Historically recognised as the oldest open community club in Wales.
1871	Langholm	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland	Formed as a community town side, laying deep roots in the Scottish Borders rugby heartland.
1872	Clifton	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Formed strictly as an open club for the Bristol suburbs, retaining distinct records from its debut year.
1872	Southport	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Pioneering open club in Merseyside that helped diversify the sport’s northern presence.
1872	Exeter	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England	Established as an open Devon town club; today’s top-flight Exeter Chiefs trace their legacy directly to this 1872 community root.
1872	Goulburn	🇦🇺 Australia	Founded in the inland New South Wales country town by Sydney University FC ‘old boy’. Defunct c.1914 or earlier.
1872	Llanelli	🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales	Formed in March 1872 as a true open community club; the unbroken foundation of the historic Scarlets.
1872	Wanganui	🇳🇿 New Zealand	Formed as a foundational town club in the southwestern North Island.

Footnote 1: RFU Founding Clubs (1871) not included in this list

Of the 21 clubs represented at the inaugural meeting of the Rugby Football Union on 26 January 1871, the following are not listed above because they do not meet the strict “open club” criterion used for this compendium (i.e., membership was restricted to a school, hospital, university, profession, or old-boys group, or the club was otherwise institutional rather than a true community/open side):

• Guy’s Hospital – hospital-based
• King’s College Hospital – hospital-based
• St Paul’s School – school side
• Wellington College – school side
• Law Club – restricted to members of the legal profession
• Marlborough Nomads – primarily an old-boys club for former pupils of Marlborough College

A small number of other short-lived London sides present at the 1871 meeting (e.g. Addison, Belsize Park, Flamingoes, Lausanne, Mohicans, Queen’s House) are also omitted. While some or all of these may have operated with relatively open membership, surviving documentation is sparse and insufficient to confirm they were genuine unrestricted community clubs rather than ephemeral or semi-restricted groupings.

All clearly open RFU founder members that meet the criteria of this list (Blackheath, Richmond, Harlequins, Civil Service, Ravenscourt Park, West Kent, Wimbledon Hornets, Gipsies and Clapham Rovers) are included.

Footnote 2: Football clubs in Victoria, Australia, prior to 1859

The first rules of what would become Australian rules (Victorian rules) football were devised by the Melbourne FC on 17 May 1859. These rules were adopted in 1860 by other clubs. It is likely all of these clubs, including Melbourne FC, prior to this had adopted a form of Rugby rules. These clubs include South Yarra, St Kilda, Richmond, Williamstown, Collingwood (not the present day club), Boroondara and Geelong.

Footnote 3: Swansea RFC
Although founded in 1872, Swansea did not play rugby until 1874.

Footnote 4: Sydney, Australia prior to 1870
The handful of clubs that existed in Sydney between 1865 and 1868 had adopted Australian rules or a variant thereof. The Sydney University FC, which cites 1863 as its founding year, is not listed in the table above as it was the team of an education institution and not an open club, and in any event did not formalise into a club until 1871, and there is no evidence of its teams playing anyone under rugby football rules until 1870. [Link]

© Sean Fagan.