News:

Welcome to Rugby League Project's Forums. We invite all who are interested to join, be friendly and enjoy!

Main Menu

Balmain's Johnson brothers

Started by Max Turner, 22 March, 2024, 10:20:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Max Turner

Bill Johnson was born on 11 January 1911 in Balmain, and died on 20 September 1974. His full name was William Jasper Johnson, and his nickname was Bunny (1).

↪ Something perhaps worth noting is that Bill Johnson's birth certificate says 11 Jan 1911, his baptism record says 10 Jan 1911, and his WWII militia record says 9 Jan 1911.
↪ One source reports that Bill was preparing for his 99th first grade game on 22 June 1940 (2), which appears to exclude the four matches listed for North Sydney in 1929. The following week for his 100th, another source says he was playing his 100th first-grade game "with the Balmain Club" or "with the locals [at Leichhardt Oval]" (3, 4). I'm not sure if this 'with Balmain' phrase implies that he did in fact play games for another club. Source (3) also mentions he was "a product of the [Balmain] district," but then says he "first became associated with the Club in 1932."
↪ At this stage, I haven't found any source which proves or disproves that Bill played for North Sydney in 1929. I'm hoping someone might find something I have missed!

Bill Johnson's brother was Balmain's one hit wonder A Johnson (5), who was Alfie Johnson (6). He was born on 21 October 1917 in Balmain, and died on 25 April 1977. His full name was Alfred Herbert Johnson.

GregRLP

I have updated details of Bill & Alfie.

I'd be pretty certain that the W Johnson who played with Norths is not Bill as the Norths player was a hooker and Bill never played hooker also Alan Whiticker's Encyclopedia & Ian Collis' A to Z book both have them as separate players.

Also Norths at the time had a few Johnson's in the team Cecil, Harold & Jimmy were brothers W Johnson is possibly related to them, maybe you could dig into the 3 Johnson brothers and see if they had a younger brother who's name started with W.

I have also created W Johnson for Norths as a separate player to Bill from Balmain.