Australian rules

An Australian rules football match at the Richmond Paddock, Melbourne, in 1866. (A wood engraving by Robert Bruce.)

The invention of Australian rules football is usually attributed to Tom Wills, who published a letter in Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle, on July 10, 1858, calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter. (Official sources which include Wills' cousin, H.C.A. Harrison, as a founder of the code are now generally believed to be incorrect.)

Wills had been educated in England, at Rugby School and had played cricket for Cambridge University. The extent to which he was influenced by the various British and Irish football games is a matter of controversy, but there were similarities between some of them and his game. Australian football also has some similarities to the Australian Aboriginal game of Marn Grook (see above), which he reportedly witnessed as a child in western Victoria.

On July 31, 1858, Wills and people responding to his letter met and experimented with various forms of football. On August 7, Wills was one of the umpires at a game between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, which took place under modified Rugby School rules.

Melbourne Football Club was founded on May 14, 1859, and is the oldest surviving Australian football club, and on May 17, 1859, at the Parade Hotel, East Melbourne, members of the club drew up the first set of laws for Australian rules football. The drafters included Wills, W.J. Hammersley, J.B. Thompson and Thomas Smith. Their code also had pronounced similarities to the Sheffield rules, most notably in the absence of an offside rule, this could be due to Henry Creswick who emigrated from Sheffield and may have been a relative of Nathaniel Creswick. A free kick was awarded for a mark (clean catch). Running while holding the ball was allowed and although it was not specified in the rules, a rugby ball was used. The club shared many members with the Melbourne Cricket Club, which was based at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and cricket ovals — which vary in size and are much larger than the fields used in other forms of football — became the standard playing field for Australian rules. The 1859 rules did not include some elements which would soon become important to the game, such as the requirement to bounce the ball while running.

Australian rules is sometimes said to be the first form of football to be codified but, as was the case in all kinds of football at the time, there was no official body supporting the rules, and play varied from one club to another. By 1866, however, several other clubs in the Colony of Victoria had agreed to play an updated version of the Melbourne FC rules, which were later known as "Victorian Rules" and "Australasian Rules". The formal name of the code later became Australian rules football (and, more recently, Australian football). By the end of the 19th century, the code had spread to the other Australian colonies and other parts of the world. However, rugby football would remain more popular in New South Wales and Queensland.