IWI: Ngāti Rangitihi

MARAE:

BIRTHPLACE:

1861 - 1903

RUGBY

His Father was an English immigrant Abraham Warbrick and his Māori mother was Nga Karauna Paerau, the daughter of a Ngāti Rangitihi chief of Matata.

Joe was the third of five children, after his mother died his father re-married and had seven more children.

As a boarder at St Stephen's School for Native Boys in South Auckland, Joe acquired not only a good education but developed into a rugby player of enormous talent. Playing in bare feet, he could kick dropped goals from half-way. In 1877, aged 15, he turned out for Ponsonby in the Auckland club competition and soon caught the eye of the Auckland selectors. He was selected for the province the same year and remains the youngest player in New Zealand to play first-class rugby.

Warbrick was selected for the first New Zealand representative team to leave these shores in 1884, making his debut against Cumberland County at Parramatta in May.

The next official tour by a New Zealand team was not until 1893, by which time Warbrick had virtually given up playing. Seeking opportunities to play rugby beyond club and provincial level, he took matters into his own hands. He was one of the key figures behind the privately organised 1888-89 New Zealand Native football tour to Britain and Australia.

Warbrick was the captain, coach and selector for the trip, while Thomas Eyton was the tour’s promoter. The intention was to cash in on British fascination with ‘indigenous visitors from the Empire’ by sending a Māori rugby team to Britain.

Warbrick later became a tour guide in the geyser fields of Rotorua. Geyser tourism had been given a major boost in 1900 when the Waimangu (‘black water’) geyser burst into life. It was the largest geyser recorded anywhere in the world between 1900 and 1904. In August 1903 it exploded unexpectedly, killing Warbrick and three tourists.

Joe Warbrick's wider contribution to rugby was recognised in 2008 when he and the Natives team were inducted into the International Rugby Board’s Hall of Fame.

Warbrick first played for the Ponsonby Club in 1877 and Auckland as a 15 year old. In 1888 he was captain and one of the major organisers of the privately funded Native Team that toured Australia, New Zealand and the British Isles.

William (Billy) Warbrick (c. 1866[3] – 28 October 1901) was a New Zealand rugby union footballer who toured with the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team on their 107-match tour of New Zealand, Australia, and the British Isles.

Provincial
Auckland 1877,82,83,86,94
Wellington1879,80,88
Hawkes Bay 1885,87

National
NZ Native Team 1888,89
All Blacks 1884