William Gilbert (Rugby)

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William Gilbert (1799-1877) had a boot and shoemakers shop in the high street next to Rugby school and started making balls for the school out of hand stitched, four-panel, leather casings and real pigs’ bladders.

It is the shape of the pig’s bladder that is reputed to have given the rugby ball its distinctive oval shape although balls of those days were more plum shaped than oval. The balls varied in size in the beginning depending upon how large the pig’s bladder was and in those early days it was necessary to ask for volunteers to inflate the ball for it was not a job that was sought after: the pig’s bladder would be blown up while still in its very smelly ‘green state’, solely by lungpower, down the stem of a clay pipe which was inserted into the opening of the bladder. By the mid 1860's Richard Lindon pioneered the "rubber bladder", the Brass Hand pump inflator and finally the advent of shape standardisation.

When William died his nephew James succeeded him.