Lions' tragic history uncovered

Stoddart, pictured to the right of where Seddon should have been, led the British rugby team after the Lancastrian's death. Incredibly, the fixture against Queensland went ahead within days of Seddon's drowning and his burial on the banks of the river at Maitland, a town in New South Wales near the vineyards of the

Hunter Valley. Seddon, an orphan from Swinton due to be married upon his return from the tour, died on August 15. Another player, Charlie Mathers, a Yorkshireman from Bramley, kept a diary in which he made the following entries:

August 15: 'A telegram came saying your captain is drowned. We were all amazed and decided to cancel the match with Newcastle the following day. At night everyone very quiet and discussing the matter.'

August 16: 'In morning went from Newcastle to Maitland, 20 miles to bury our poor, unfortunate captain, Mr Seddon. When we got there we found him laid in his coffin. They all broke down but me. We went and had a service. Church crowded. All shops closed.' Seddon had been sculling when his boat capsized. 'His feet were stuck in the straps and when he struck out, he dragged the boat after him,' said an eye-witness. 'In his death struggles he must have tried to loosen the straps under water because they were found partly unbuckled when the boat was found.'

The show had to go on, not least because, according to Queensland rugby archivist Ian Diehm, Shrewsbury had driven 'a hard bargain, asking for £450 and all expenses' for four matches in the sunshine state. Surprisingly, the RFU banned only one player, Jack Clowes of Halifax, on the grounds that he had professionalised himself.

More surprisingly, Clowes had still gone on the tour which, under amateur laws, was enough to professionalise everyone else involved in an odyssey including 18 exhibition games against Aussie Rules opposition. While the current Lions need 37 players to get through a tour of 10 matches, the originals played 53 fixtures with a squad of 22.

At the end, a number of players stayed in Australia rather than return to face the music at Twickenham - among them Angus Stuart, a Welshman who eventually returned five years later as a member of the New Zealand touring team.

Harry Speakman, of Runcorn and Cheshire, was one of those who never came back, settling initially in the old gold mining town of Charters Towers before captaining Queensland.

His grandson Paul Speakman, now a 60- year- old Brisbane builder, said: 'As far as the rugby authorities were concerned, these people were renegades. They knew that if they went back to the mother country, there was a fair chance they would be ostracised.' The RFU had refused to sanction the tour and the Union's formidable secretary, Rowland Hill, said in a statement: 'They do not consider it within their province to forbid players joining the undertaking. But they feel it their duty to let gentlemen who may be thinking of going know that they must be very careful they do not transgress the laws for the prevention of professionalism.

'The committee will look with a jealous eye upon any infringement of such laws and they desire specially to call attention to the fact that players must not be compensated for loss of time.'

When the broken-time issue forced the Great Schism of 1895, many of the survivors from the prototype Lions tour resurfaced in rugby league. By then, Stoddart had retired to the Stock Exchange but he, too, came to a tragic end, committing suicide at the age of 52.