Charles Sherrard

Biography

Charles William Sherrard was born on December 25, 1848, in London, England. He went to Rugby School in Warwickshire, where rugby football started in the early 1800s. There, he built the athletic skills that led him to international sports. He later became an officer in the Royal Engineers of the British Army, a career that defined much of his adult life and gave him technical expertise and a disciplined sense of duty.

Sherrard is best known in sports history for playing in the first international rugby union match on March 27, 1871, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh between England and Scotland. He played for England in that match and in other games between 1871 and 1872, making him one of the early figures of international rugby union. Alongside Lieutenant Charles Arthur Crompton, also from the Royal Engineers, Sherrard was among the first active military members to represent their country in international rugby, marking a significant point in the sport's early history.

His ties to Rugby School made his international career even more notable, as the school was known as the birthplace of the game. Players educated there carried a direct link to the sport's origins, and Sherrard represented that continuity as rugby grew from its school and club roots to organized international competition. The Football Association had only set football's rules a few years before, and the Rugby Football Union was founded just weeks before that first international match in 1871.

Besides his sporting achievements, Sherrard had a career as an engineer in the British Army's Royal Engineers. The Royal Engineers were known for producing men skilled in both technical abilities and leadership, and Sherrard's career fit this pattern. He married Clara Maud Brooke, and they lived in England, eventually settling in Beckenham, now part of the London Borough of Bromley, where he died in 1928. Some records mention his death year as 1938, but 1928 is listed in biographical records.