Some exciting items have recently been returned to the Rugby League Archive after a long period on loan. The Ernest Parker Collection is a small but important collection within the archive and contains some of the oldest items in the collection.

Wakefield Trinity was founded in 1873 and was formed via the Holy Trinity Church in Wakefield; it went on to become one of the original 22 founding members of the Northern Union (later known as the Rugby Football League) who broke away from the Rugby Football Union in 1895.

Ernest Parker was an important figure in Wakefield Trinity’s early history, supporting the team through the years before and after the break from Rugby Union, and later becoming the club’s treasurer for several years.

The Ernest Parker Collection includes reports and accounts for Wakefield, scorebooks, programmes, guidebooks, and several decades of season tickets. This one from the 1890-1891 season was presented as a booklet – each page had a ticket for a specific match which that could be easily removed using the pre-punched perforations.