• Home
    • Rugby Reloaded
    • How Football Began
    • Sport in Capitalist Society
    • About
Menu

Tony Collins

"History books are not enough! Where are the wage lists?' Bertolt Brecht
  • Home
  • Menu
    • Rugby Reloaded
    • How Football Began
    • Sport in Capitalist Society
    • About

Rugby Reloaded #104 - Rugby and the 1904 Smallpox Epidemic in West Yorkshire →

March 16, 2020

This special edition of 'Rugby Reloaded' looks back at how rugby responded to the 1904 smallpox epidemic in West Yorkshire, and asks are there lessons to be learned for today?

← Rugby Reloaded #105 - Face to Face with Global Crisis. RugbyLeague and the start of World War 2Rugby Reloaded #103 - Union/League Convergence? with Rhiannon Garth Jones →

Rugby Reloaded

Welcome to the complete archive of Rugby Reloaded podcasts. Simply click on the link in the description of each podcast to listen to it.

The compete catalogue of Rugby Reloaded podcasts can also be accessed via www.soundcloud.com/rugbyreloaded

These pages are also home to my irregular blog. Some of the material here I haven't published elsewhere so I hope that it is a useful resource.

Comments are not enabled on this blog. If you really have something to say, you can email me at mail@tonycollins.org or, better still, start your own blog.

Blog index

  • 2023
    • Sep 11, 2023 Rugby Reloaded 196 - 1931: When France Was Expelled From the Five Nations
    • Aug 29, 2023 Rugby Reloaded 195 - Rugby League in Thatcher's Britain with Anthony Broxton
    • Feb 6, 2023 Rugby Reloaded 194 - the origins of football in South America with Prof Matthew Brown
    • Jan 26, 2023 Maurice Oldroyd (1935-2023): an appreciation
    • Jan 17, 2023 Out Now! 'Who Framed William Webb Ellis? And Other Puzzles in Rugby History'
  • 2022
    • Dec 19, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 193 - Cricket and Class, with Duncan Stone
    • Nov 28, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 192 - The history of St George Dragons with Geoff Armstrong
    • Nov 14, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 191 - Huddersfield: a town, a club, and rugby's great split
    • Oct 24, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 190 - Roy Francis, George Bennett, race and rugby league
    • Sep 12, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 189 - The 'Roaring Red Front' of football clubs
    • Sep 2, 2022 Creation Stories, Origin Myths and the invention of Sporting Traditions
    • Jun 23, 2022 Governing Bodies: Sport and the Body in History
    • Jun 13, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 188 - Why is the rugby ball oval?
    • May 23, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 187 - Farewell to Maurice Lindsay, administrator extraordinaire
    • Apr 26, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 185 - Rugby's Concussion Crisis: a short history (part two)
    • Apr 25, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 186 - The History of South African Rugby Union, with Jonty Winch
    • Mar 14, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 184 - Rugby's Concussion Crisis: a short history (part one)
    • Jan 31, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 183 - 1997: Rugby League's Year of Living Dangerously, with Steve Mascord
    • Jan 10, 2022 Rugby Reloaded 182 - The Long & Winding History of Rochdale Hornets
  • 2021
    • Dec 20, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 181 - The Prince Obolensky story, with Hugh Godwin
    • Dec 6, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 180 - The 1946 'Indomitables' tour, with Martin Whitcombe and Huw Richards
    • Nov 22, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 179 - The Newcastle Utd takeover and the ghosts of football past, with Gavin Kitching
    • Nov 1, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 178 - The 1981 Springbok tour of the USA, with Professor Derek Catsam
    • Sep 27, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 177 - 'Keep On Keeping On' - history of the London Broncos with Huw Richards
    • Aug 23, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 176 - Rugby League in South Africa with Dr Hendrik Snyders
    • Jul 19, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 175 - Dockers, Trawlerman and the Oval Ball City, with Trevor Gibbons
    • Jul 12, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 174 - The 1914 3rd Rugby League Ashes Test Match - 'Wagstaff's Match'
    • Jul 5, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 173 - The History of Ice Hockey: The Third Rugby Code?
    • Jun 28, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 172 - 'Rugby League is Dying': The History of a Meme
    • Jun 21, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 171 - Joseph Platt & the problems of rugby league administration
    • Jun 14, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 170 - Rugby League, Class & Mental Health with Jon Bell
    • Jun 7, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 169 - Sunderland and the origins of football in the North East, with Gavin Kitching
    • May 31, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 168 - Poetry, rugby union and World War One
    • May 24, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 167 - How Leicester Tigers saved English rugby union
    • May 17, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 166 - The Origins of Rugby in Hull: When East was West...
    • May 10, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 165 - Sheffield's Youdan Cup: the trophy that inspired the FA Cup?
    • May 3, 2021 Rugby Reloaded 164 - Rugby & Art: Robert Delaunay's 'The Cardiff Team'
    • Apr 26, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #163 - Rugby League and the coal-mining industry
    • Apr 19, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #162 - 'Going North': From the Great Split to the Great Depression
    • Apr 12, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #161 - Cricket and the birth of Football
    • Apr 5, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #160 - Super League: 25 Years On
    • Mar 29, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #159 - The Roots of Super League
    • Mar 22, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #158 - XFL discusses merger with the Canadian Football League, with Spencer Kassimir
    • Mar 15, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #157 - Manchester: Rugby's Lost City
    • Mar 8, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #156 - Julia Lee: Rugby League Trailblazer
    • Mar 1, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #155 - Rugby league and the Jewish community
    • Feb 22, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #154 - The Rise, Fall and Re-Rise of the Drop-Goal
    • Feb 15, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #153 - Football Before 'football': folk-football in Britain
    • Feb 8, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #152 - The Other Amateur Rugby: the early history of amateur rugby league
    • Feb 1, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #151 - 'Rugger Diplomacy': the British Foreign Office and Romanian rugby
    • Jan 25, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #150 - 150 Years Since The Founding Of The RFU
    • Jan 18, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #149 - Tries, Damned Tries and Statistics, with Neil Ormston of the RL Record Keepers' Club
    • Jan 11, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #148 - Tom Brown's School Days
    • Jan 4, 2021 Rugby Reloaded #147 - The Ghost Player at the Roses Match
  • 2020
    • Dec 28, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #146 - Peter Harvey: from St Helens to Twickenham and Back Again
    • Dec 21, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #145 - Christmas Day football and rugby league
    • Dec 14, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #144 - 'Puddings, Bullies & Squashes': Early Public School Football
    • Dec 7, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #143 - Talkin' Salary Cap Blues with Sean McGuire
    • Nov 30, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #142 - Once Were Kangaroos - looking back on the 1986 Kangaroo tour with Mark Flanagan
    • Nov 23, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #141 - Anglo-Welsh rugby union rivalry, with Huw Richards
    • Nov 16, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #140 - State of the Rugby Codes in 2020 with Mark Evans (part two)
    • Nov 9, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #139 - State of the rugby codes in 2020, with Mark Evans (part one)
    • Nov 4, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #138 - Gus Risman: Rugby Renegade?
    • Oct 26, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #137 - The 'Corinthian Spirit', soccer and amateurism with Prof Dil Porter
    • Oct 19, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #136 - 'The Rugby Codebreakers' redux with Carolyn Hitt
    • Oct 12, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #135 - Sky Sports' Brian Carney on Gaelic football and Rugby league
    • Oct 5, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #134 - Sports’ archives and mapping Irish women’s football with Helena Byrne
    • Sep 28, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #133 - O Canada: Lessons of British Rugby League Expansion
    • Sep 21, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #132 - TV, the BBC & British rugby league
    • Sep 14, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #131 - 40 Years of Fulham and London rugby league expansion
    • Sep 7, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #130 - The Secret History of Leeds Utd
    • Aug 31, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #129 - 25 Years of Professional Rugby Union with Ben Darwin
    • Aug 24, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #128 - 'Rugby League: A People's History' book launch
    • Aug 17, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #127 - The 1946 Indomitables' tour of Australia and New Zealand
    • Aug 10, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #126 - Rugby Union and the Olympic Games
    • Aug 4, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #125 - World War One and Australian rugby's great myth
    • Jul 27, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #124 - Roy Francis & the Harry Sunderland Trophy
    • Jul 20, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #123 - 'Prescott's Match' & the Secret History of the 1958 Lions' Tour
    • Jul 13, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #122 - Rugby Union after the Pandemic, with Rhiannon Garth Jones
    • Jul 6, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #121 - 50 Years Since the Lions won the Ashes (or, why the Poms Don't Win Anymore)
    • Jun 29, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #120 - Announcing the National Rugby League Museum, with Dr Kevin Moore
    • Jun 22, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #119 - The Oval Money Ball, rugby, stats and coaching with Rob Lowe
    • Jun 15, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #118 - How to Market Rugby League, with Kacy Mackreth
    • Jun 8, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #117 - The Crystal Palace Controversy, with Dr Kevin Moore
    • Jun 1, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #116 - British Rugby League after Lockdown, with Sean McGuire
    • May 25, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #115 - All Blacks v Springboks: the struggle for rugby union supremacy in the interwar years
    • May 18, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #114 - Bath v Wigan 1996: When Two Cultures Clash
    • May 17, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #113 - Was Soccer 'Football'? or, 'The Football Historian's Fallacy'
    • May 10, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #112 - Olsen Filipaina, ' The Big O' with Patrick Skene
    • Apr 28, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #111 - Oneida FC: The Short Life and Long Controversy of America's first football club
    • Apr 23, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #110 - Did China Invent Football? With Dr Kevin Moore
    • Apr 14, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #109 - Rugby's Time Tunnel: The Mitchell & Kenyon films
    • Apr 8, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #108 - Life Without League: Diaries during Coronavirus & the importance of history
    • Apr 6, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #107 - Face to Face with Global Crisis: British Rugby League in WW1
    • Mar 30, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #106 - 'The English Game': How football did not begin
    • Mar 23, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #105 - Face to Face with Global Crisis. RugbyLeague and the start of World War 2
    • Mar 16, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #104 - Rugby and the 1904 Smallpox Epidemic in West Yorkshire
    • Mar 16, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #103 - Union/League Convergence? with Rhiannon Garth Jones
    • Mar 12, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #101 - 'Power Meri', women's rugby league in PNG with Joanna Lester
    • Mar 9, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #102 - Rugby union in a divided Ireland, with Dr Liam O'Callaghan
    • Feb 24, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #100 - Rugby's Class War in the UK Parliament with David Hinchliffe
    • Feb 17, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #99 - Bradford's Great Split: Soccer v Rugby in the Woolopolis
    • Feb 10, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #98 - What Really Happened at Vichy, with Dr Melissa McMahon
    • Feb 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #97 - Six Nations History: The 1920s-1930s with Huw Richards
    • Jan 29, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #96 - 25 Years of Super League with Sean McGuire
    • Jan 22, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #95 - Rugby League History in New Zealand with Ryan Bodman
    • Jan 13, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #94 - What You Know About Soccer is Wrong, with Dr Kevin Moore
    • Jan 6, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #93 - Barette: French women's rugby in the 1920s with Lydia Furse
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #92 - When Kangaroos were Underdogs: Australian rugby league in the 1920-30s
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded #91 - The History of Aboriginal Rugby League with Professor Heidi Norman
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded podcast archive - episodes 81-90
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded podcast archive - episodes 61-80
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded podcast archive - episodes 41-60
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded podcast archive - episodes 21-40
    • Jan 3, 2020 Rugby Reloaded podcast archive - episodes 1-20
  • 2018
    • May 28, 2018 ‘How Football Began’: a sneak preview
    • May 11, 2018 Fifty Years Since the Watersplash Final
    • Mar 19, 2018 William Webb Ellis Was Framed! - the Rugby Reloaded podcast launch
    • Mar 13, 2018 The Rugby Codebreakers - watch again
    • Mar 7, 2018 Welsh Codebreakers in the Inter-War Years
    • Feb 21, 2018 Canada joins rugby league... in 1943
  • 2017
    • Dec 1, 2017 How the Rugby League World Cup 2017 signals a change in international sport
    • Jul 22, 2017 Before the Wolfpack - Rugby League in Canada and beyond
    • Mar 27, 2017 David Storey & Lindsay Anderson's 'This Sporting Life'
  • 2016
    • Oct 31, 2016 Whatever it was, it wasn't a field goal...
    • Sep 27, 2016 The Past, Present and Future of the Scrum
    • Sep 25, 2016 1930: The 'Daily Worker' debates the rugby codes
    • Aug 31, 2016 Harry Jepson 1920-2016: A Life in Rugby League
    • Aug 30, 2016 Harry Jepson: Farewell to the last living link with 1895
    • Jul 12, 2016 Roger Millward 1947-2016
    • May 12, 2016 England, Great Britain, Northern Union. What's in a (rugby league) name?
    • Apr 29, 2016 Gus Risman - The Indomitable
    • Apr 25, 2016 Soccer: How the Global Game Became Global
    • Apr 1, 2016 Origins of Australian football (part three): 'Britishness' and national sport mythology
    • Mar 30, 2016 Origins of Australian Rules football (part two): how the rules emerged
    • Mar 23, 2016 Origins of Australian Rules football (part one)
    • Mar 11, 2016 England versus Wales in the shadow of 1895...
    • Feb 4, 2016 Who will be the 2016 Super League Champions?
    • Jan 30, 2016 The Oval World - the impact of the RFU
    • Jan 27, 2016 The Oval World - Anglo-Saxon Rugby and Global Soccer
    • Jan 25, 2016 The Oval World - rugby and 'globalisation' in the Nineteenth Century
  • 2015
    • Nov 26, 2015 Empire of the Scrum: the history of rugby in Shanghai
    • Nov 19, 2015 120 Years of Rugby League
    • Nov 6, 2015 Conversion rates...
    • Oct 2, 2015 'Whinging Poms and Arrogant Aussies?' The roots of the rugby rivalry
    • Sep 29, 2015 Was rugby more dangerous than soccer in Victorian times?
    • Sep 26, 2015 The Roots of Rugby League - a four week course
    • Sep 24, 2015 Here We Go Again: 'English Rugby Union is not a middle-class sport'
    • Sep 21, 2015 William Webb Ellis - back from the dead
    • Sep 16, 2015 'A Social History of English Rugby Union' wins best book award
    • Aug 2, 2015 Miners and rugby league at the National Coal Mining Museum
    • Jul 23, 2015 Maori, Kiwis and the Haka
    • Jun 16, 2015 The Walter Camp myth and the origins of American football
    • Jun 15, 2015 Rugby League in North America in the 1950s
    • Jun 11, 2015 The Rise and Fall of American Rugby 1906-15
    • Jun 8, 2015 The 1919 King's Cup: rugby union's first 'world cup'?
    • Jun 1, 2015 Sheffield Football, Rugby and the Origins of Soccer
    • Apr 12, 2015 The birth of rugby in York
    • Apr 7, 2015 Boxing, race and the working class
    • Feb 27, 2015 Dicky Lockwood - Rugby's Forgotten Giant
  • 2014
    • Nov 18, 2014 Willie Horne - Barrow's working-class hero
    • Aug 31, 2014 Ways of Seeing: W.A. Wollen's 'The Roses Match'
    • Aug 5, 2014 Rugby League in World War One
    • May 14, 2014 A Rugby Time-Tunnel
    • May 9, 2014 Eddie redux
    • Jan 27, 2014 Wally McArthur: A Tribute
  • 2013
    • Dec 16, 2013 Peter O'Toole and rugby league
    • Sep 5, 2013 Walter Camp on rugby league
    • Jun 13, 2013 Broken Time 'not an issue' in the 1895 split?
    • Jun 8, 2013 'Where’s George?': League’s Forgotten Feature Film
  • 2012
    • Sep 5, 2012 This Sporting Life
    • Aug 21, 2012 All Aboard for Wembley!
    • Aug 12, 2012 Phil Melling, 1947-2011
    • Aug 12, 2012 Why six tackles in league?
    • Aug 12, 2012 1895: the aftermath
    • Aug 12, 2012 The evolution of the scrum
    • Aug 12, 2012 League and literature
    • Aug 12, 2012 Why is rugby league 13-a-side?
    • Aug 12, 2012 Eddie Waring: Mr Rugby League (BBC4)
    • Aug 12, 2012 In honour of Albert Goldthorpe
    • Aug 12, 2012 What was rugby called before 1895?
    • Aug 12, 2012 The hidden history of Sevens and 'short-form' rugby
    • Aug 12, 2012 Kenneth Wolstenholme and rugby league
    • Aug 12, 2012 A contest for possession?
    • Aug 12, 2012 'Invictus': whitewash meets fairytale
    • Aug 12, 2012 A game for all shapes and sizes?