Judkins had gone under the radar and was hardly mentioned in the school records until some local history research by OP Phil Gilbank (67-74) in the 1970s came across an item in the local Pocklington Weekly News of 26 August 1899 stating: "W Judkins late of Pocklington School is one of the team of English Rugby Footballers at present touring Australia". Though the tour party was a true British Lions conglomerate, and the first to include players from all four home countries, most newspapers recorded it an English touring team. Based on this, Judkins was included in an article in Pocklington School's 1979-80 magazine that celebrated its rugby centenary; but doubts subsequently arose when British Lions' history publications, then the official Lions' website, named the 1899 tourist as 'William Judkins', not the ex-Pocklington Schoolboy, Walter. Furthermore, while those sources gave scant detail about the player, they also said he was a former pupil of Repton School.

So, Pocklington's W Judkins went back under the radar; until the 2025 Lions tour sparked Phil to have another look. And thanks to reference sources now available online, such as census and newspaper archives, he was able to plot Walter Judkins' life history and prove without doubt that he was indeed the W Judkins named as playing against Australia in the 1899 Pocklington Weekly News.

Walter Judkins was born in 1876 in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, the son of a prosperous Nuneaton quarry owner.

He started his schooling at Daventry Grammar School, just three miles down the road from home. But that changed abruptly in 1889 when Daventry's headmaster, Rev Charles Hutton, was appointed the new Head of run-down Pocklington School, and immediately quintupled the Pocklington pupil numbers from 10 to 50 by bringing 40 boys with him as boarders from Daventry to West Green.

The Lions record Judkins as a former Repton School pupil, and Judkins did indeed go to Repton – but only for a few months before returning to Pocklington. Repton's records have him arriving in September 1891 and leaving in April 1892, whereas he is listed at Pocklington every year between 1890 and 1894.

Judkins had already shown some athletic prowess at Daventry, where rugby football was the main sport. Ensconced in Pocklington, Judkins was a capable, rather than a star, sportsman. He won junior and senior events on sports days, finishing first in the senior 440 yards and long jump in 1893, played a few first team cricket matches, and in the 1893-94 season was a regular in the school's football 1st XI - Pocklington played rugby 1879-1884, but declining pupil numbers forced a switch to soccer with just an occasional game of rugby, until 1910 when rugby again predominated.

In his time as a first team footballer at Pocklington, Judkins played alongside schoolmaster James Anderson (it was common in those days to have boys and masters in the same team); and ex-pat Anderson became Argentina's first international soccer captain in 1901 plus one of that country's leading rugby players, being ARU President in 1904. Judkins also played with Anderson in a handful of games at Pocklington rugby club's Percy Road ground.

After leaving school, Judkins went to work in the family business in Nuneaton, and within a few months the teenager was turning out for the local Nuneaton rugby club. The Judkins family were also long-standing Northamptonshire land and property owners, and Walter's father moved up the family hierarchy to take over their estate at Heyford Grange, near Northampton, with Walter switching to Northmpton Saints to play his rugby for the 1896-97 season.

Life then changed dramatically in the next few years. After his father died in March 1898, Walter turned up for a trial at Coventry Rugby Club, straightaway became a first team pack regular, and in April 1899 was selected for the British Isle's team of 21 players to tour Australia the following month.

The boat journey 'Down Under' took five weeks, and they had hardly recovered when beaten 13-3 by Australia in the First Test, when Judkins was not included in the lineup. But he was one of five new players brought into the side for the Second Test a month later which was won by the Lions 11-0; and he kept his place as they defeated Australia twice more, by 11-10 and 13-0, to take the series 3-1. In all Judkins played in 13 of the 21 games on the ten-week tour.

He returned to England via America in October 1899 and was straight back in action for Coventry in the 1899-1900 season. Despite returning from Australia as a leading British Lion, he never progressed to an England cap.

His rugby journey came to an abrupt end as he promptly volunteered for army service abroad. He saw action in the 1900 Ashanti campaign, in what is now Ghana, then fought in the Boer War as a Captain in the Imperial Yeomanry cavalry 1901-02.

His army career had somewhat ignominious development in 1903 when he was court-marshalled, though acquitted, along with half a dozen fellow young officers for "behaviour unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" after "ragging" a journalist in South Africa. He returned home to Heyford, became a director of the Judkins Quarry and Brickworks, and lived the life of a local gentry, freemason and businessman at his two abodes in Northamptonshire and London. He was active in society circles in both places, plus was elected skipper of Heyford's village cricket team in 1905, while remaining a part-time army officer, taking command of the Woolwich company of the 5th Rifle Brigade Militia until 1907.

He married in 1909 but had no children, continued as both a country gentleman in Heyford and city gent in Kensington, served very briefly in WWI, and died suddenly aged 44 in 1921 on a trip to South Africa.

Having uncovered Judkins’ full life story and rugby career, Phil contacted the British Lions authorities. They accepted the new information and agreed to correct their archives to acknowledge that the Lions 1899 forward is Old Pocklingtonian, Walter Judkins, thus enabling the school to now officially record him as one as one of Pocklington's historic sporting greats.

(Phil Gilbank, 67-74)