Albert Henry Baskerville

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Albert Henry Baskiville was a Wellington postal clerk, a rugby union forward, author of the book "Modern Rugby Football : New Zealand Methods ; Points for the Beginner, the Player, the Spectator" and a pioneer of rugby league.

In 1907, he persuaded a group of New Zealand rugby union players to tour Great Britain, playing under the new professional Northern Union code. Baskerville's motives appear to have been mainly financial; a recent rugby union tour of Great Britain had netted handsome profits, and he hoped to do likewise. It is generally believed that Baskerville first became aware of the profits to be made from such a venture while he was working at the Wellington Post Office: a colleague had a coughing fit and dropped a British newspaper. Baskerville picked it up and chanced upon a report about a Northern Union match that over 40,000 people had attended. Baskerville wrote to the NU asking if they would host a NZ touring party. The team was dubbed the All Golds by the New Zealand press, a derogatory pun on the New Zealand rugby union team's nickname of All Blacks.

He contracted pneumonia on the ship taking the touring party back from Britain, and died aged 25 in Brisbane on 20th May 1908. He is commemorated by the naming of the Baskerville Shield, the trophy awarded when Great Britain and New Zealand meet in test series.