When Jac Morgan and Tomos Williams became the 206th and 207th Welshmen to play for the British & Irish Lions in their 2025 tour opener against Argentina in Dublin last week they were extending a tradition that was begun 137 years ago by William Henry Thomas. Cambridge undergraduate ‘Willie’ Thomas was the first Welsh player […]
When Jac Morgan and Tomos Williams became the 206th and 207th Welshmen to play for the British & Irish Lions in their 2025 tour opener against Argentina in Dublin last week they were extending a tradition that was begun 137 years ago by William Henry Thomas.
Cambridge undergraduate ‘Willie’ Thomas was the first Welsh player to don the famous jersey, although way back on the original tour in 1888 it was white, blue and red hoops, rather than plain red.
It was a remarkable adventure for Thomas and his 21 other teammates. They left Plymouth on the SS Kaikoura on 10 March, he celebrated his 22nd birthday at sea 12 days later and then didn’t dock in Dunedin, where the Lions played their first fixture, until 22 April.
Morgan and Thomas are among a squad of 38 players who will play 10 matches over a six-week period. Compare those figures with what Thomas had to contend with:
• 22 players (9 backs, 13 forwards)
• 54 games in 21 weeks
• 35 rugby union matches (19 in New Zealand, 16 in Australia)
• 19 Victorian Rules matches
• 249 days away from home – left 8 March and arrived home 11 November
Thomas played in the first game of the tour, and the first by a Lions side on New Zealand soil, at the Caledonian Ground, Dunedin, against Otago on 28 April. He also played in the first fixture in Australia, against New South Wales at the Association Cricket Ground in Sydney on 2 June.
Thomas played in 28 and the 35 rugby fixtures and was also a near ever present in the 16 games of Aussie Rules. He even played in the cricket game against Canterbury played at Hagley Oval on 28 September 1888.
It must have been a tortuous tour given the ‘English Footballers’, as they were referred to, only took 22 players. One of those, John Clowes, was professionalised by the RFU before the team even boarded the SS Kaikoura, and the captain, Robert Seddon, tragically drowned in the River Hunter in Maitland half-way through the tour.
The Otago Witness ran biographies of the players before they arrived in New Zealand. This is how they characterised Thomas:
W.H. THOMAS (Wales, Cambridge University). Forward. Age 21. Height 5ft 11½in, weight 13st 7lb. Learned his football at Llandovery school, a great nursery of footballers. Captain of the school team in 1884–85, playing then at centre three-quarter back. Playing as a substitute in the match Swansea v Llanelly in the forward division in the same season, he was pronounced the best on the ground. Was consequently chosen second reserve forward for Wales v England, and actually gained his international cap against Scotland a week later. He was then only 18. Since then has always been chosen for Wales. For the last two seasons has represented Cambridge University, and the London Welsh. Is a dashing forward, always on the ball, and works hard in the scrummages. Also a fine all-round athlete.
The Lions were playing twice a week on rock hard grounds and when they weren’t playing they were invariably travelling. That said, they weren’t doing it for nothing!
The 1997 Lions tour to South Africa is widely regarded as the first fully professional tour, coming two years after the game was declared ‘open’, but 109 years earlier the ‘Class of 1888’ were all paid for touring by the organisers.
Three great England cricketers, Arthur Shrewsbury, Alf Shaw and James Lillywhite were the masterminds behind the 1888 venture. They failed to get the official backing of the RFU but enticed the players to join their 33-week long venture with the promise of an advance of £15 as a ‘clothing allowance’, and between £90 and £200 each for making the trip.
The level of payments were revealed in a letter to Shaw on 22 June 1888 in which he tells his partner, Shrewbury, he has renegotiated the contracts for an extra six-week stay in order to extend the Tour into Queensland.
“You must send Anderton’s pay to his mother or whoever it is, a month extra, on account of him staying out longer. I will let you know whether to do the same with Nolan’s people later. It all depends on how he behaves himself. Thomas, I see by the book, was to have £3 a week. Now if we were to give him £3 per week for the extra six weeks he stayed he will be having £18 for the extra time, whereas the other men are staying for nothing except Anderton. Originally Thomas was to have £90. If the thirty weeks he agreed to stay was divided into £90 for convenience sake, so as to arrive at what the amount would come to per week, then he won’t be entitled to any extra money. If on the other hand you agreed to pay him £3 per week from the time he left home until his return, then we shall have to pay him the extra £18.”
So, as well as being Wales’ first Lion, Thomas can also qualify to be the first professional to play for his country. To put those payments in some form of context, £1 in 1888 is equal to £166 in 2025 using the UK inflation index. That means £200 then would be worth more than £33,000 today.
The son of a commercial traveller who was born on 22 March 1866, Thomas lived with his parents, Evan and Marry Anne, in Kensington Street in Fishguard. In 1879, at the age of 13, he was sent to Llandovery College.
Before he left school be had been picked to play for Wales. He won the first of his 11 caps on 10 January 1885 against Scotland in Edinburgh at the tender age of 18. The game ended in a 0-0 draw.
He went up to Cambridge to study at Corpus Christi in October 1885 but didn’t make the Varsity Match team that term. He did however play in Cambridge wins in the following two years and also won a half Blue at cross country.
In December 1886 he helped the Light Blues to win three tries to nil at the Rectory Field, Blackheath, and in 1887 at Queen’s club he knocked over a conversion in a victory by 2 goals, 1 try and 4 minors to nil.
His international career continued in 1886 when he started against both England and Scotland and played for Wales’ right up to 1891. He played in the 0-0 draw with England in Llanelli at the start of the 1887 Home Nations Championship, but lost his place after a rout by the Scots in Edinburgh in round 2.
Now playing for London Welsh, he featured in both internationals in 1888 before heading on the Lions tour. He didn’t play for Wales in 1889, but returned in 1890 to play in the first Welsh win over England at Crown Flatt, Dewsbury.
Wales triumphed by a try to nil, with England being captained by his fellow 1888 tourist Andrew Stoddart, and they followed that up with a draw against the Irish. His final year of international rugby came in 1891 when he captained Wales against the Scots in Edinburgh.
This time he was playing at Llanelli and Wales went down 15-0. He wrapped up his international career with a home win over the Irish at Stradey Park.
Having taken time out from his studies at Cambridge to go on the 1888 tour he was still registered as a ‘Cambridge undergraduate’ on the 1891 census, living with his mother in Fishguard. He earned a BA in 1894 and an MA in 1898 and went on to become a schoolteacher.
He served in WW1 and died on 11 October 1921 of acute pneumonia while at Beccles College. He was 55.