Rugby

Rugby, town and borough in Warwickshire, central England. Rugby is a cattle market and engineering town located on the River Avon, 19 km (12 mi) east of Coventry. The town assumed importance with the building of the railways in the 19th century, becoming a railway junction, and attracting a wide range of industries. The town’s economy is now largely dependent upon agriculture, engineering, and cement production.

The internationally famous Rugby School was founded as a free school for boys in the town in 1567. Between 1828 and 1842, under headmaster Thomas Arnold, the school was a model of the British public school system with a programme of physical, moral, and religious discipline. It was the setting for Tom Brown’s School Days (1857) by Thomas Hughes and the founding place of rugby football. A plaque on a wall beside the school commemorates “the exploit of William Webb Ellis”, the pupil who invented the game in 1823. Rupert Brooke, the poet, was born in Rugby in 1887. Population 87,449 (2001).