Rugby School in the context of "Rugby football"

Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union or often just rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby involves running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, the game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.

Rugby union is a popular sport around the world, played by people regardless of gender, age or size. In 2023, there were more than 10 million players worldwide, of whom 8.4 million were registered. World Rugby, previously called the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886, and currently has 116 countries as full members and 18 associate members.

Augustus Henry Frazer Lefroy (21 June 1852 – 7 March 1919) was a Canadian legal scholar.

Augustus Henry Frazer Lefroy was born on 21 June 1852 in Toronto, then in Canada West. He attended Rugby School and New College, Oxford, receiving an honours BA in 1875 and a MA in 1880.

A public school in England and Wales is a type of fee-charging private school originally for older boys. The schools are "public" from a historical schooling context in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession or family affiliation with governing or military service, and also not being run for the profit of a private owner.

Although the term "public school" has been in use since at least the 12th century, its usage was formalised by the Public Schools Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 118), which put into law most recommendations of the 1864 Clarendon Report. Nine prestigious schools were investigated by Clarendon (including two day schools, Merchant Taylors' and St Paul's) and seven subsequently reformed by the Act: Eton, Shrewsbury, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, and Charterhouse. Team and competitive sports became an important part of the curriculum, which contributed to establishing the rules and propagating the growth of many different sports.

Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. He has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education.

Muscular Christianity is a religious movement that originated in England in the mid-19th century, characterized by a belief in patriotic duty, discipline, self-sacrifice, masculinity, and the moral and physical beauty of athleticism.

The movement came into vogue during the Victorian era as a method of building character in pupils at English public schools. It is most often associated with English author Thomas Hughes and his 1857 novel Tom Brown's School Days, as well as writers Charles Kingsley and Ralph Connor. American President Theodore Roosevelt was raised in a household that practised Muscular Christianity and was a prominent adherent to the movement. Roosevelt, Kingsley, and Hughes promoted physical strength and health as well as an active pursuit of Christian ideals in personal life and politics. Muscular Christianity has continued through organizations that combine physical and Christian spiritual development. It is influential within both Catholicism and Protestantism.

Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement. As headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were widely copied by other noted public schools. His reforms redefined standards of masculinity and achievement.