Thomas Ellison

Thomas Ellison
Date of birth	11 November 1867
Place of birth	Ōtākou, New Zealand
Date of death	2 October 1904 (aged 36)
Place of death	Porirua, New Zealand
Weight	86 kg (190 lb)
School	Te Aute College
Notable relative(s)	Edward Pohau Ellison (brother); Raniera Ellison (nephew); John Howell (father-in-law); Edward Weller (grandfather); Te Matenga Taiaroa (great-grandfather); Riki Ellison (grandnephew); Rhett Ellison (great-grandnephew);
Spouse	Ethel May Howell (m. 1899)
Occupation(s)	Lawyer
Rugby union career
Position(s)
Position(s)	Forward and half-back
Amateur team(s)
Years	Team
1885–93	Poneke Football Club
Provincial / State sides
Years	Team
1885–92	Wellington
International career
Years	Team
1888–89; 1893;	New Zealand Natives; New Zealand;

Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison (11 November 1867 – 2 October 1904), also known as Tom Ellison or Tamati Erihana, was a New Zealand rugby union player and lawyer. He led the first New Zealand representative rugby team organised by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) on their 1893 tour of Australia. Ellison also played in the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team on their epic 107-match tour, scoring 113 points, and 43 tries with the side.

Born in Ōtākou, Otago Heads, Ellison was educated at Te Aute College, where he was introduced to rugby. After moving to Wellington, Ellison played for the Poneke Football Club, and was selected to play for Wellington province. He was recruited into Joe Warbrick's privately organised Native football team in 1888, and continued to play for both Poneke and Wellington on his return from that tour. In 1892, he started to refine and popularise the wing-forward system of play, which was a vital element of New Zealand rugby's success until 1932. At the first NZRFU annual general meeting in 1893, he proposed that the playing colours of the New Zealand side should be predominantly black with a silver fern—a playing strip that would give the team their famous name of All Blacks. He retired from playing rugby after captaining the 1893 New Zealand side to New South Wales and Queensland, but continued in the sport as a coach and administrator. Ellison was the author of a coaching manual, The Art of Rugby Football, published in 1902.

As well as being one of the first Māori admitted to the bar, practising as a solicitor, and later as a barrister, Ellison also stood unsuccessfully for the Southern Maori parliamentary seat several times. After contracting tuberculosis in 1904, he was briefly institutionalised before dying later that year.