This is the first in an occasional series of articles about people who have done great things in the world of rugby.

1. Jimmy Peters - the first black international

Can you guess how many black British players were capped for their countries in the 115 years of international rugby prior to 1986?
Just one - James Peters.

One hundred years ago, in November 1903, Peters was awarded his first county cap, for Devon. He then went on to play stand-off for England. The som of a Jamaican lion tamer and English mother, his was an extraordinary sporting life - a black player in an exclusively white society and sport.

The story is as unlikely and bizarre as any you are likely to read. As a child he was a circus bare-back rider. Aged 15 he was captain of his orphanage rugby team. Aged 21 he was playing for Bristol.

His most successful period would be spent in Plymouth, working in the Royal Naval Dockyard as a carpenter and playing for Plymouth. He was already an England international in 1906 when the first South African team visited the British Isles. The Springboks played against Devon, but their players ‘made a scene’ when they saw that Peters was black and it took some high ranking intervention to persuade them to take the field.
Interestingly, Peters would not be selected to play for England later in the Springboks’ tour.

In 1912 the RFU punished 38 players and officials, including Peters, for attempting to form a breakaway professional rugby league in the South West. As a consequence he moved to rugby league, playing for Barrow and then St. Helens.

It would be 80 years until the next debut of a black British international player - Glen Webbe of Wales in 1986.

Source: The Rugby Football Union