Capturing Homosocial Worlds in the Photographs of the Rugby Club, 1885–1920

During the First World War, the Rev. Charles S. Donald, warden of the London-based Rugby Club, sent several war time circulars to current and former club members. This article examines how Donald used the circular’s photographs to sustain pre-war links. It will therefore consider how snapshots from their annual camping trips and boxing heroes inscribed male intimacy and friendship. Touch will be shown to be a vehicle through which homosocial intimacy was expressed both in the moment the photograph was captured and during the war.