1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season
| 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season | |
|---|---|
| League | Championship |
| Teams | 22 |
| 1895–96 season | |
| Champions | Manningham |
| Top point-scorer(s) | Cooper (Bradford) 106 Lorimer (Manningham) 106 |
| Top try-scorer(s) |
 Jack Hurst 28 |
The 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season was the first ever season of semi-professional rugby football, which formed the foundation of the modern-day sport of rugby league. Twenty-two Northern English teams from both sides of the Pennines broke away from the Rugby Football Union to create and compete in their own competition. The inaugural championship ran from September 1895 until April 1896. The Northern Union's first season would prove so popular that the following season saw the addition of several more clubs, and the tournament was split into two separate county competitions.
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) had been organising the British rugby football season for much of the late 19th century, maintaining rules of strict amateurism. However clubs from the largely working-class areas of Northern England believed that their players should be compensated for time taken off work as a result of playing rugby. It was put forth in an RFU meeting that broken time payments should be allowed, but the motion was voted down and all clubs were required to prove their amateurism or face expulsion from the Union.
On Thursday, 29 August 1895 delegates from twelve Yorkshire and nine Lancashire clubs met at The George Hotel in Huddersfield to discuss their dispute with the RFU over compensating players. They voted unanimously to resign from the RFU and set up the Northern Rugby Football Union (to later be renamed the Rugby Football League) and run a competition of their own in which broken time payments were allowed. Mr H. H. Waller, chairman of the Brighouse club, was elected the first ever chairman of the Northern Rugby Football Union. Of the clubs at that meeting, only Dewsbury backed out for the time being, but two Cheshire clubs, Stockport and Runcorn had joined up by the time the new 'Northern Union' played its first games on 7 September.
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