Football Association founded: the night the game chose one rulebook (1863)
The Football Association founded English football’s governing body on the evening of Monday 26 October 1863, when the captains and secretaries of a dozen clubs from London and its suburbs met at the Freemasons’ Tavern, an inn on Great Queen Street. Barnes solicitor Ebenezer Cobb Morley had summoned them by letter to settle one question: whether the clubs could agree “a definite code of rules for the regulation of the game”. They walked out having created the body that still runs football.
A dozen clubs sat in that room. One rule would break the meeting apart, and it took six sittings before football owned a single code.
Key Facts
- Founded on the evening of Monday 26 October 1863 at the Freemasons’ Tavern, Great Queen Street, London.
- A dozen London and suburban clubs sent delegates; eleven signed up as members.
- Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a Barnes solicitor, convened the meeting through a letter to the sporting newspaper Bell’s Life.
- Morley drafted thirteen laws at home in Barnes and became the FA’s first honorary secretary.
- The laws were finalised at the sixth meeting, on Tuesday 8 December 1863, six sittings inside forty-four days.
- The first match under the new laws, Barnes against Richmond, ended in a goalless draw (0-0) on Saturday 19 December 1863.
- Blackheath withdrew over the loss of hacking, and clubs of its persuasion helped start the Rugby Football Union in 1871.
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A solicitor, a letter, and a room in Holborn
How the Football Association founded a single code
The man behind the meeting was Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a solicitor who had started Barnes FC in 1862 with friends from his rowing club. Born in Hull in 1831, he is remembered as football’s founding father, the man who wrote to the sporting paper Bell’s Life arguing the game needed written rules just as cricket had the MCC’s. A rower and lawyer rather than a public-school sportsman, he was one of the outsiders who reshaped how the game is played. His letter pulled the scattered clubs into one room.
That Monday evening the captains, secretaries and delegates of about a dozen sides climbed the stairs at the tavern. In the room were Barnes, the War Office and Crusaders; Forest of Leytonstone, the No Names of Kilburn and Crystal Palace; Blackheath, Kensington School and Perceval House; then Surbiton, the Blackheath Proprietary School and Charterhouse. The count is not quite clean, because Charterhouse sent its captain, B.F. Hartshorne, who attended without committing the club, so a dozen were represented but eleven signed up as members. One of those eleven survives, Civil Service FC, entered on the night as the War Office.
The gathering on 26 October did the founding and almost nothing else. The association was set up at that first sitting and its constitution drawn up at the second, then the rules were fought over across four more. What matters is the sequence. 26 October created the body, but the code itself was not signed off until the sixth meeting, on Tuesday 8 December 1863. Whenever the game is said to have been “written” in October, that is a fortnight and a half too early.
The rule that split the room
The fight was over hacking, the practice of kicking an opponent’s shins, which the Blackheath men were determined to keep. Their delegate defended it to the last, insisting that “hacking is the true football” and that the game needed it to develop masculine toughness. When the vote turned against him, thirteen votes to four, he resigned on the spot. Blackheath and the other handling clubs, Richmond among them, drifted away from Morley’s dribbling code and went on to establish the Rugby Football Union in 1871, the break that turned association football and rugby into separate sports.
Morley wrote the laws out by hand at his Barnes home, thirteen of them. One shows how rough the old game had been: law thirteen barred boots fitted with iron plates, projecting nails or gutta percha. The finished code was printed by John Lillywhite of Seymour Street and sold for a shilling and sixpence. Morley took the post of first honorary secretary that year, held it until 1866, and later returned as the association’s second president.
The FA wanted its laws seen in practice, so Barnes played Richmond under them on Saturday 19 December 1863. It ended goalless, a 0-0 draw, with Richmond, who had not joined the FA, plainly unconvinced by the new game.
| Detail | The FA’s own history | Cross-check |
|---|---|---|
| Clubs in the room | About a dozen listed, eleven signed up | Charterhouse’s heritage record: captain B.F. Hartshorne declined, so eleven not twelve |
| Full roll of clubs | Twelve named | Spartacus Educational: a shorter list of nine |
| First-match location | Barnes | FIFA: Mortlake |
READ MORE: How a fight over hacking sent rugby and football their separate ways →
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Football Association’s Founding
When and where was the Football Association founded?
The Football Association was founded on Monday 26 October 1863 at London’s Freemasons’ Tavern on Great Queen Street, near where Holborn tube station now stands. Clubs from London and the nearby towns met there to form a governing body for the game, and the FA dates its existence from that night.
Why was the Football Association formed in 1863?
The clubs met because there was no single set of rules for football, and sides that played each other often disagreed on what was allowed. Ebenezer Cobb Morley had written to the newspaper Bell’s Life arguing the game needed a common code, much as cricket had the MCC’s laws. The meeting set out, in its own words, to agree “a definite code of rules for the regulation of the game”. Standardising the rules is the reason the body exists.
Who was Ebenezer Cobb Morley in the 1863 founding of the FA?
Ebenezer Cobb Morley was the London solicitor who convened the founding meeting and is often called football’s founding father. Born in Hull in 1831, he set up Barnes FC in 1862 and wrote the letter to Bell’s Life that led to the 26 October gathering. He drafted the first laws at his home in Barnes and became the FA’s first honorary secretary. He later served as the association’s second president.
Which clubs attended the FA’s founding meeting on 26 October 1863?
The clubs in the room were Barnes, the War Office and Crusaders; Forest of Leytonstone, the No Names of Kilburn and Crystal Palace; Blackheath, Kensington School and Perceval House; then Surbiton, the Blackheath Proprietary School and Charterhouse. Most were London-area sides, each playing its own version of the game. Several are now defunct or switched to rugby. The Crystal Palace of 1863 has no link to the present Premier League club of that name.
How many clubs actually joined the FA at that first meeting?
Eleven clubs signed up as members at the first meeting in 1863. A dozen are usually named, because Charterhouse sent its captain, B.F. Hartshorne, who attended but kept the club out. So about a dozen were represented and eleven committed.
Were the Laws of the Game agreed on 26 October 1863?
No. The 26 October meeting founded the association but did not settle its laws. The code drafted by Morley was signed off at the sixth and final meeting, on 8 December 1863. The October date marks the founding, not the finished rulebook, and conflating the two is a common error.
What was hacking, and why did it divide the 1863 meetings?
Hacking meant kicking an opponent’s shins, allowed in some of the public-school games the delegates had grown up with. Blackheath wanted to keep it, arguing it was central to a manly sport, while Morley’s side wanted it gone. The dispute became the defining split of the meetings that followed the founding. The FA’s final code contained no hacking.
Why did Blackheath leave the Football Association after 1863?
Blackheath withdrew because the FA voted to ban hacking and running with the ball in hand, the very features its members prized. Its delegate resigned when the vote turned against him, by thirteen votes to four. Blackheath and clubs like Richmond kept the handling game alive and helped start the Rugby Football Union in 1871. That departure is where football and rugby formally parted.
When was the first match played under the FA’s new laws?
The first match under FA rules was played on Saturday 19 December 1863, between Barnes and Richmond. It finished as a goalless draw, 0-0. Richmond were not FA members and were unconvinced by the new game. The fixture came eleven days after the laws were finalised on 8 December.
Where was the first FA-rules match, Barnes against Richmond, played?
The match, Barnes against Richmond on 19 December 1863, was played at Barnes, in the corner of south-west London on the Thames. It finished 0-0.
How many meetings did it take to found the FA and write its laws?
It took six meetings across forty-four days. The association was set up at the first meeting on 26 October 1863 and its constitution drawn up at the second. The laws were argued over the next few sittings and approved at the sixth, on 8 December. Only then was the new body ready to operate on its own.
Which club from the 1863 FA founding still exists today?
Civil Service FC is the only founder member still playing. It was entered at the 1863 meeting under its old name, the War Office. The club now competes in the Southern Amateur League. Every other founding side has either folded, merged or moved to rugby.
How is the FA’s 1863 founding connected to the birth of rugby union?
The clubs that wanted to keep hacking and handling the ball lost the argument at the FA and drifted away. Blackheath and Richmond were among the sides that kept the carrying game and went on to found the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The 1863 split therefore marks the moment association football and rugby began growing into separate sports. Both codes trace part of their family tree to those Great Queen Street meetings.
Who published the FA’s first Laws of the Game in 1863?
The first laws were printed by the publisher John Lillywhite, in a booklet priced at a shilling and sixpence. Morley had drafted them by hand in Barnes. There were thirteen laws in all, one of which banned dangerous boots. The printed code gave clubs a shared reference for the first time.
Why does the Football Association’s founding still matter?
The 1863 meeting produced the first national governing body for football and a single national code of laws, the template every later federation followed. Before it, clubs could not reliably play each other because each kept its own rules. The FA’s code settled that, and the organisation it created still runs the English game. That is why 26 October 1863 is treated as football’s institutional birthday.
Football Association founded, and the game it standardised
By the time Morley died in 1924, the association he had convened in a Holborn tavern governed a sport played across the world, and the forty-four days of argument in 1863 had set the pattern every modern football body still copies. You can trace more origin points, upsets and turning dates through our On This Day series.
Sources: The FA, Hull History Centre, Spartacus Educational, FIFA, Charterhouse, Richmond FC.
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