ABSTRACT
1. The men who ran the Northern Union 1 in the period immediately following the split were mainly members of the business and industrial middle classes. They were of broadly similar socioeconomic status to the members of the RFU establishment but, as we have seen, there was a significant difference between these groups: the former had not, for the most part, attended public schools. This meant they were not integrated into the national ruling élite and hence retained their local ties and identifications. It also meant that, even though they claimed allegiance to the amateur ethos, they had not been socialized into its tenets directly and from an early age. As a result, their commitment to it was relatively weak.
