JOSEPH LAVERY – KIWI #11

Outside-back Joseph Lavery was a member of the famed New Zealand All Golds before embarking on a professional club career in England and returning home to play in pioneering matches for Canterbury.

A Canterbury and South Island representative rugby union winger, the strapping Lavery embarked on the All Golds’ pivotal tour of Britain in 1907-08 alongside former Christchurch Albion 15-a-side teammates Hubert ‘Jum’ Turtill and Charles Pearce.

Lavery stayed in England after the tour, becoming Leeds’ first overseas player as well as having stints with St Helens, Leigh, Salford and Barrow.

He moved back to Christchurch and featured for Linwood in the first-ever CRL club matches in 1913 and played in Canterbury’s historic match against West Coast in Greymouth in 1915.

Lavery was wounded in action in World War I. He eventually returned to the north of England, living in the Ashton Under Lyne area, where he died at the age of 68 in 1948.

JOSEPH LAVERY
NEW ZEALAND (1907-08)
0 Tests
-New Zealand All Golds tour of Britain