Page:Football, the Rugby game.djvu/13

Rh control of the game. Composed originally of fifteen ordinary members and four officers—a president, two vice-presidents, and a joint secretary and treasurer—it has since undergone but two changes in shape; first, by the addition of the past presidents as ex-officio members in 1877, and secondly, by the final separation of the offices of secretary and treasurer in 1881, when Mr. Rowland Hill took office for the first time; but in the matter of representation the case is far different.

At first the entire committee was naturally composed of London men, but by the year 1873 the North were already putting forward claims which could not be denied. In that year an unofficial North v. South match was arranged by Messrs. James MacLaren and Roger Walker of Manchester, and Mr. E. Kewley of Liverpool acting for the North, and by Mr. F. I. Currey, the secretary of the Union, acting for the South. Accordingly, in 1874, we find Messrs. MacLaren and Kewley elected as the first Northern representatives on the committee, and from that time forward North v. South became a regular Union fixture. In 1877 Mr. H. W. Garnett was given a place on committee as the first representative of Yorkshire, and in the following year Mr. Kewley was made the first Northern vice-president, and at the same time the North were allotted five other places on committee, an extra place being afterwards made for Mr. MacLaren by the unanimous vote of the committee under their powers to add to their number. In 1881 Mr. J. D. Miller was elected as the first representative of the West, and in the next year Mr. MacLaren became the first Northern President. Since that date places have been allotted to Cheshire, Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Midland Counties, the Universities, and New Zealand—the various parts of the kingdom being