You will not find the name of Ernie Olver on an honours board in the clubhouse at Astley Park or in the various histories, jottings and reminiscences tracing Brixham Rugby Club’s 150-year existence.

Yet, as I have very recently discovered, he is the only home-grown player to have been capped at full international level. And for South Africa, no less.

Just six months after emigrating in early 1896, Ernie was selected on the left wing to face the British Isles (now the British & Irish Lions) in the first Test at Port Elizabeth on Thursday, 30 July. With 7,500 spectators crowded into the Crusaders Ground at St George’s Park, it was all a far cry from the playing field at Furzeham where Ernie first pulled on a Brixham shirt.

Ernie Olver, seated far left, in the South African XV before
the first Test against the British Isles on 30 July 1896.

That one international appearance makes him officially No 33 of nearly 1,000 Springboks to date, although one authoritative source closer to that era has him listed as the 34th (The Springboks 1891-1970, A C Parker).

My contacts in South Africa have indicated that Ernie played three times against the tourists – first for a combined Port Elizabeth & Uitenhage XV on Saturday 25 July and then again for Eastern Province on the Tuesday, just 48 hours before the Test.

The ‘Lions’, making their second visit to South Africa, comprised only English and Irish players and were more tactically astute than their hosts as well as having a perceived height and weight advantage.

Ernie was no slouch as a sprinter or miler but Dr Tommy Crean, the Ireland forward who captained the tourists in the absence of the injured Johnny Hammond, stood 6ft 2in, weighed 15 stones (95kg) and was timed at 10.4 seconds for the 100 yards.

Famously, Crean urged his teammates to restrict their pre-match consumption of champagne to only four glasses. This larger-than-life Boys’ Own character stayed on to play for Transvaal and was awarded the Victoria Cross in the Second Boer War, as was fellow Lions tourist, Robert Johnston.

Our young man from Brixham most probably saw very little of the ball in the first half because the touring side’s pack monopolised possession. Contemporary reports described the home forwards rather harshly as ‘worthless’ and ‘worse than useless’, according to A C Parker.

Ernie Olver … he faced the ‘Lions’ three times in five days.

The team was led by Ernie’s provincial captain, Francis Myburgh, who would have been influential in his selection. There were three other Eastern Province men plus two each from Griqualand West and Transvaal but Western Province supplied six, include three who had faced the 1891 Lions – F H Guthrie, Barry Heatlie and Charlie van Renen.

At least South Africa defended manfully, holding the visitors to a single try before half-time, scored by Oxford University forward Walter Carey. They conceded just one more in the second half, awarded to Irish three-quarter Larry Bulger and converted by J F ‘Fred’ Byrne, of Moseley, for a final scoreline of nil-8. Carey was another who made his life in South Africa afterwards, becoming Anglican Bishop of Bloemfontein.

Ernie must soon have realised that his first international appearance was likely to be his last, not least because of the distances and journey times between the four Test locations. Johannesburg, the next venue, was more than 600 miles to the north, accessible only by a rudimentary railway. Where the tracks petered out, all-day drives in a ‘coach and ten ponies’ filled the gaps in the itinerary. It was primitive and punishing travel, as the Lions discovered themselves.

The South African Rugby Football Board (established 1899) did not have a national selection system at that time, relying instead on provincial panels who attempted to strike a balance between a core of first-teamers from the Highveld and the Cape and readily available local talent. In truth, that probably worked to Ernie’s benefit.

South Africa also lost the Tests in Johannesburg (8-17) and Kimberley (3-9) before showing that they were fast-learners, registering their first-ever international success in the final Test at Cape Town (5-nil). By this time the home line-up was markedly different, dominated by men from Western Province and the Transvaal who were kitted out for the first time in myrtle green. It was destined to become the colours of the Springbok jersey.

Ernie’s international career was at an end as soon as it started, although he did at least go on to make nine further appearances for Eastern Province through to 1899.

If anyone back home in Brixham was aware of his achievements, it does not seem to have been common knowledge at the club. In fact, it had always been a source of regret that no player ever came up through their ranks to earn full international honours, or so it was believed.

True, Steffon Armitage (five England caps 2009-10) had a fleeting involvement with the club’s junior section before joining the Saracens academy, but he doesn’t really pass the home-grown test. Others such as Tony Watkinson, Rory Jenkins and Ed Barnes moved on to major clubs and progressed to England’s second string – A and B and Saxons – but no further.

It was only while taking a closer look at events and personalities in the early 1890s as part of wider research into the club’s history that I came across ‘E Olver’, chosen to captain Brixham in the 1892-93 season while still only 18 years of age.

Curious to know his first name, I rather hopefully tapped out ‘E Olver rugby football’ into Google, which linked immediately to a Wikipedia entry for an Ernest Olver as ‘an English born South African international rugby union player’. It even had a grainy head-and-shoulders picture, taken from a pre-Test line-up in which he was seated far left. He was the right age, but could he possibly be the same player?

Indeed he was, as further research confirmed his birthplace at Liskeard in Cornwall and a South African genealogy website detailed his parentage. He was then found in a photograph of Brixham’s 1890-91 team (mis-spelt ‘E Oliver’), when he would have been 16. 

Ernie was born on 27 July 1874, the third son of Richard and Eliza Olver (nee Rapson), and he was still a babe in arms when the family moved to South Devon. His father had given up work in the lead mines of Menheniot to find his vocation as a minister of the Congregational Church. Richard then served the congregation in Buckfastleigh for four years until he was appointed pastor of the Brixham church in September 1878, a position he held for more than 17 years. In that time he earned the respect of all denominations, not least for his work on the Brixham School Board.

In the 1881 Census the Olver household at 5 Manor Terrace included six children, Edith (11), Alfred (10), Richard Jnr (8), Ernest (6), Edwin (2) and Lottie (1), plus their parents and a 16-year-old servant, Ellen Giles. In 1886 Ernie, like his elder brother Richard, became a boarder at Caterham School in Surrey, which had been established to educate the sons of Congregationalist ministers. With team sports such as cricket and rugby a key part of the curriculum, it was no great surprise that he broke into the Brixham first XV soon after his 16th birthday.

The Brixham team of 1890-91 – back row: W Silley, T Ellis, C Edwards, Dr G B Elliott, E Bartlett,
P Kitto, E Olver. Middle: J Tribble, J Brusey, R Hall, J Knight, T Merrifield, W Reese.
Front: J Harris, J Hazlewood, R Creese, E Thomas.

Ernie was an athlete too. In Brixham’s Whit Monday fete, held around the fortifications at Berry Head on 6 June 1892, he collected a prize of a silver-mounted salad bowl and servers for winning the 100 yards sprint.

Some 2,000 people who attended the fete also saw him finish second to his rugby teammate, R Creese, in the one mile open handicap. To be voted in as captain shortly afterwards was both an indication of his exceptional ability and something of an indictment of the club’s decline since Robert Seaward’s ‘Invincibles’ of the early 1880s.

Participation in the Devon Junior Cup offered a first step towards restoring fortunes but Brixham’s second round tie with Torquay Athletic B was twice deadlocked before another replay on neutral territory at Paignton on 27 March 1893.

After a scoreless first half, Ernie took charge in virtuoso fashion by scoring an intercept try (2pts), then touching down again and adding the conversion for the goal (5pts) before landing two drop goals (4pts each), which accounted for all 15 points in the game.

The Totnes Times, reporting a month later on a narrow victory by Totnes in a friendly match at home to Brixham, was in no doubt about the teenager’s value and influence:

“Without Olver what would Brixham be? But with him they are a smart lot. Capt Olver proved a regular demon at kicking and had it not been for his efforts combined with Hall, the back, Totnes might have scored several times.”

Later that month, however, an incident in a fixture with Exmouth was to have repercussions for both the club and its young captain. Two Brixham players, J Harris and R Hall, were suspended by Devon RFU from 1 October to 14 November while Ernie, who had remonstrated rather too vociferously with the referee, was handed a longer ban to 1 January 1894.

His suspension was eventually reduced by a month after an appeal in which a letter from the referee stated that “Mr Olver had amply apologised for any disrespect he might have shown him.”

That was no consolation for Brixham though, because their star player had already opted to join Torquay Athletic. The saga did not end there, as Ernie found himself embroiled the following year in a Devon RFU investigation into rumours that Torquay Athletic had breached rules around the ‘Rugby Union Manifesto on Professionalism’. In that document the RFU’s die-hard defenders of amateurism had drawn the battle lines against those who supported ‘broken time payments’ to ensure that working class players would not be unduly disadvantaged. 

Ernie in Torquay kit

The Tics’ junior neighbours, the Torquay Town club, were surprised to find themselves in the dock too when the Devon RFU committee met at just three days’ notice on the evening of Tuesday 2 November 1894 to establish the facts. Professionalism was such a divisive topic at this time that it would lead to a breakaway by the ‘Northern Union’ just nine months later and the establishment of Rugby League. The Devon inquiry was ordered by George Rowland Hill, Honorary Secretary of the Rugby Football Union, who had received an alarming letter from Mr F G Hamer, a director of the Recreation Ground, home of Torquay Athletic.

It alleged 1) that a Mr J Bond had been offered a winter’s work to play for Torquay Athletic; 2) that a Devon RFU committee member and ‘warm supporter’ of Torquay Athletic, Mr F U Webb, had offered Bond £20 to leave Torquay Town to play for their rivals; and 3) that Torquay Athletic had offered inducements to named players from the Brixham, Totnes, Paignton, Torquay Town and Aller Vale clubs to join and play for the ‘Athletes’. Ernie Olver was identified as the Brixham player but when examined by the committee he denied any improper approach.

The Devon Evening Express (28 November 1894) reported that ‘a crowd numbering several hundreds’ had gathered outside the meeting venue in Torquay, the Great Western Hotel opposite the Recreation Ground. Journalists were not allowed to attend and no official statement was issued but well-informed sources had already revealed all to the newspaper, which went to press next day.

After more than four hours deliberation, the committee had found that the charge of professionalism against Torquay Athletic was ‘not sustained’ but that Torquay Town were guilty of compensating Mr Bond for loss of wages, damned by a telltale payment entry in the club books.

Ernie duly made 21 appearances for the ‘Athletes’ to the end of 1893-94 and remained with the club for another season and a half, proving more than able to compete at senior level. If there had been any ill-feeling at Brixham over his defection, it did not stop the club inviting him to turn out as a guest against Buckfastleigh on 23 March 1895. Ernie obliged with three of Brixham’s four tries.

Was it a choreographed farewell to old friends and the town he grew up in? Quite possibly, for it was a significant year of deliberation and decisions among the Olver family.

A week later Ernie was best man at the wedding of his elder brother Alfred, newly ordained and following his father into missionary work with the Congregational Church. After a few days’ honeymoon in Torquay he and his bride, Mary Elizabeth (Robjohn), sailed on the RMS Tantallon Castle from Southampton to Cape Town, bound for the town of Worcester, 60 miles to the east.

A few months later Reverend Richard Olver – a “beloved and esteemed pastor” in the eyes of his congregation – announced that he too was leaving Brixham in February 1896 to become minister of the North End Congregational Church in Port Elizabeth. Ernie accompanied his parents, seemingly set on making a new life for himself in South Africa.

Brixham were getting ready for a bold move themselves in 1896, forsaking their rough and ready home at Furzeham for Great Gate Park on Rea Barn Road, still their home today.

Shortly before Ernie’s departure Torquay Athletic members expressed their appreciation to the ‘dashing centre threequarter’ by presenting him with a handsome gold Albert chain to which was attached a small gold plate representing a football, suitably inscribed.

Brother Edwin followed in due course, as did the youngest, Lottie, who married an Irish diamond mine official in Pretoria in 1908. Reverend Richard and Eliza must have returned to England soon after but Ernie stayed on, marrying Annie Elliott Bowe on 10 July 1901 in Port Elizabeth and making a living as a salesman.

They had a daughter, Olive, and at some point moved to Johannesburg where Ernie died on 19 June 1943, just short of his 69th birthday.

Kevin Coughlan