James Tilyard
New Zealand rugby union player (1889–1966)
James Thomas Tilyard (27 August 1889 – 1 November 1966) was a New Zealand rugby union player.
Tilyard, Australian born, represented Wellington and Wanganui provincially. He played his club rugby with Poneke. A brother, Fred, was also an All Black while other brothers competed in club rugby at a high level.
He played his only Test match for New Zealand when he took the field as a first five-eighth in an 11-point loss to Australia at Christchurch in 1913. It was more of a second string All-Blacks team as the usual players had already started their tour of Canada when this Test, the final of the series, was played.
Tilyard returned to the national team in 1920 and captained them for a tour of New South Wales. He made nine All Black appearances on the tour, scored four tries and kicked two conversions as well as a drop goal.
The talented sportsman also appeared in one first-class cricket match for Wellington in 1908, against Hawke's Bay in Napier. In a drawn match, Tilyard contributed scores of 31 and nine.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James Tilyard” is new Zealand rugby union player (1889–1966). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Tilyard and Zealand, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16004113. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1966, 1913 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Tilyard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.