What’s in a name? The 1905 All Blacks.

What’s in a name? The 1905 All Blacks.

The New Zealand rugby team that toured the United Kingdom in 1905-06 was the first to be known as the All Blacks.

When they began the tour, the team was usually called the New Zealand Football Team or the New Zealanders. The name ‘All Blacks’ first appeared in an article written about a match played in Hartlepool on 11 October 1905, published in the Daily Mail.

Debate rages over whether the name came from the team’s uniform (all black, except for the silver fern on the jersey and white bootlaces) or from a mistake in a newspaper article, where the description of the team being made up of 'all backs' was misprinted as 'all blacks'.

You can read about the debate in Ron Palenski’s book about the All Blacks, The jersey (2001). The Library has several copies of this book.

Search the National Library Catalogue for holdings of The jersey

Read match reports

You can read match reports from the 1905 tour on our digital collection Papers Past.

New Zealand v. England, 2 December 1905 - Papers Past website

New Zealand v. Surrey, 5 December 1905 - Papers Past website

New Zealand v. Wales, 16 December 1905 - Papers Past website

'Cheer up new Zealand! Footballer not dead yet' - Papers Past website

See more All Blacks images

You can find more pictures of the All Blacks and New Zealand rugby by browsing our digital collection Timeframes, using the search term 'rugby'. Or come to the Library and visit Turnbull Library Pictures, where you can browse New Zealand sport photographs: everything from surf lifesaving to croquet.

Timeframes website

You can also visit the 'Sporting New Zealand' showcase on the Matapihi website to see images and multimedia resources on sport from cultural organisations around the country.

Sporting New Zealand showcase -Matapihi website

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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