Mr Thomas Welsby

Thomas Welsby is best known as a rugby union man and arguably the early saviour of the game in Queensland. He was halfback and manager of the first State team to play NSW in 1882 in a forerunner to a monumental decision in Queensland sport whereby schools at the time choose rugby over Australian football as the predominant code.

Born in Ipswich in 1858 after his parent migrated from England, he was first and Australian football man, playing with the original Brisbane Club at 16 in 1874. Only when a group of expats wanted to play inter-colonial rugby did he switch codes to help out, and he returned in the early 1900s to serve Australian football with distinctioni for more than 40 years.

But he was so much more, he founded Brisbane Gymnasium and was a founding member of the Amateur Fishing Association. He formed the Queensland Boxing and Wrestling Union, and the Brisbane Sailing Club, later the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron.

A fine businessman, he was a member of State Parliament for three and half years and was a noted and author, helping to form the Queensland Historical Society.

77 years after his death he was inducted, in the general category, in the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame.