Ernest Hartley Mair (15 January 1891 – 12 January 1957) was an Australian

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

administrator and hotelier, who coached the

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

side on their 1926-27 tour of Great Britain.

Early years

Ernest Mair was born on 15 January 1891 to a Scottish father and English mother in

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. He played rugby league as a youth, but was much more prominent as a swimmer, becoming President of the

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

Swimming Association and also the Queensland Amateur Swimming Association. In 1920, he married Mildred Readshaw and with her ran several hotels in Toowoomba. After becoming President of the Valley club in Toowoomba and Toowoomba Junior Rugby League, Mair was appointed New Zealand Rugby League representative on the Australian Rugby League board of control.

1925-26 New Zealand Tour

lost the series 0–3 against the

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and also lost a test match against

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. The tour of Britain involved several skirmishes within the Kiwi party. Problems began on the boat journey over, with disputes developing about aspects of the trip and a rift developed between Mair and seven forwards. The disputes continued once the party arrived in Britain, with one of the rebels being involved in a street fight with another member of the tour party after the opening match. At a meeting with English Rugby League authorities in on 8 November, following further disturbances which almost led to the tour party being evicted from their

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hotel, it was decided that Mair would withdraw from team selection and match tactics for a period of a month. The tour, and the costly disputes, continued with the rebels eventually setting sail for home a week earlier than their colleagues. Three months later all seven players ( Arthur Singe, Neil Mouat, John Herbert James Wright, Alphonsus Carroll, Bill Devine, Lou Petersen and

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) were banned for life by the

New Zealand Rugby League The New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) is the governing body for the sport of rugby league, rugby league football in New Zealand.#SPARC-2009, SPARC, 2009: 13 The NZRL was founded on 25 April 1910 in preparation for a 1910 Great Britain Lions tour o ...

.Coffey, John and Bernie Wood ''Auckland, 100 years of rugby league, 1909-2009'', 2009. .

Later life

Mair returned to Toowoomba in March 1927, becoming one of the district team selectors and was made a life member of the Toowoomba Rugby League in November 1927. In September 1929, Mair was charged with attempting to convince two men to set fire to a hotel he owned, the Commercial Hotel in

Cunnamulla Cunnamulla () is a town and a Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Shire of Paroo, Queensland, Australia. It is south of Charleville, Queensland, Charleville, and approximately west of the state capital, Brisbane. In the 2021 Au ...

. Mair was discharged after the case against him collapsed. In 1938, Ernest Mair was in Cairns, Queensland and the team manager of Past Brothers Minor Juniors who won the 1938 Premiership in the local C.R.L (Cairns Rugby League). He died in

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, on 12 January 1957, aged 65, after injuries sustained after being struck by a car in Brisbane.Coffey, J. (2012) Strike: The Tour That Died of Shame, Scratching Shed Publications: Leeds p266

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mair, Ernest Hartley 1891 births 1957 deaths Australian rugby league coaches New Zealand national rugby league team coaches Road incident deaths in Queensland