John Barnett (rugby)

John Thomas "Towser" Barnett (19 January 1881[2] – 2 October 1918[4]) was a pioneer Australian rugby union and rugby league footballer who won an Olympic gold medal for rugby at the 1908 Summer Olympics. He was one of Australia's early dual-code rugby internationals.[5]

John Barnett
Birth nameJohn Thomas Barnett[1]
Date of birth(1881-01-19)19 January 1881[1][2][3]
Place of birthCarcoar, New South Wales[1]
Date of death2 October 1918(1918-10-02) (aged 37)[4]
Place of deathParramatta, New South Wales
Rugby league career
Position(s) Second-row
Senior career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1910-15 Newtown 74 (18)
State of Origin
Years Team Apps (Points)
1910-11 New South Wales 3 (0)
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1910 Australia 2 (6)
Rugby union career
Position(s) Lock, prop
Amateur team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
1903-09 Newtown RUFC ()
1906 Lithgow RU ()
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1907-09[1] Australia 5 (0)
Medal record
Men's rugby union
Representing  Australasia
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place1908 LondonTeam competition

Rugby union career
1908 Olympic Gold Final Wallabies v Cornwall

A hooker/prop with the Newtown Rugby Union club in Sydney, Barnett was selected five times to play representative rugby for Australia. His debut was against New Zealand, in Sydney, on 20 July 1907.

Barnett was selected to the first Wallaby 1908–09 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, the squad captained by Herbert Moran. That side competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London and Barnett was a member of the Australia national rugby union team captained by Chris McKivat which won the gold medal.

On his return to Australia he joined the fledgling code of rugby league along with fourteen of his Olympic teammates.

Rugby league career

Barnett and five other gold medal-winning Wallabies joined the Newtown club in Sydney in 1910 where he played the next six seasons. He was a member of the premiership winning Newtown side in 1910. He was selected in both Ashes Tests against Great Britain in 1910 when Australia hosted the tourists.

Barnett made his international league debut in the First Test in Sydney on 18 June 1910. Four of his former Wallaby teammates also debuted that day Bob Craig, Jack Hickey, Charles Russell and Chris McKivat - making them collectively Australia's 11th to 15th dual code internationals. This mirrored a similar occurrence two years earlier when five former Wallabies in Micky Dore, Dally Messenger, Denis Lutge, Doug McLean snr and John Rosewell all debuted for the Kangaroos in the same match — the first ever Test against New Zealand.

Death

Barnett died on 2 October 1918, aged 37 at the Parramatta District Hospital from the effects of meningitis after a three-week battle with pneumonia.[6] He was survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried at Rookwood Cemetery on 4 October 1918. As a tribute to "Towser" Barnett, a fund was set up by "the Referee" newspaper to raise money for his widow and family. By the November the fund had raised over £64, many donations were made up by his first grade rugby mates, at a time when spare money was often in short supply.[7]

Barnett middle row 4th from right, with the 1908 Wallaby tour squad

See also

Footnotes
  1. "Scrum.com player profile of Jack Barnett". Scrum.com. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  2. The birthyear of John Thomas Barnett is erroneously cited as 1886 by databaseSports.com Archived 16 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine. In addition it is cited as 1880 by ESPN's Scrum.com database, which is also in error. The birth year is registered in the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages as 1881 - Registration #: 12032/1880.
  3. "John Barnett". databaseSports.com. Archived from the original on 16 August 2011. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  4. "Funeral Notices". The Sydney Morning Herald. NSW, Australia. 4 October 1918. p. 5. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  5. "John Barnett". Olympedia. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  6. Whiticker p22
  7. The Referee, Sydney. "The Jack Barnett Fund". 27 November 1918 (page 7).

References
  • Whiticker, Alan (2004) Captaining the Kangaroos, New Holland, Sydney
  • Whiticker, Alan & Hudson, Glen (2006) The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players, Gavin Allen Publishing, Sydney
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