The man who made it black

Most people know the myth of how the All Blacks got their name, essentially a corruption of the Daily Mail newspaper saying they played like they were all backs.
But it’s just that, a myth.
In fact they were called the All Blacks when they arrived. There are several newspaper articles calling them All Blacks well before the Daily Mail comment.
And it’s apparently because of Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison - also known as Tom or Tamati Erihana.
Ellison was born at Otakou on the Otago Peninsula on November 11, 1867.
His grandfather, also Thomas Ellison, had married Te Ikairaua of Ngāti Moehau and had a son, Raniera Taheke Ellison who went on to marry Nai Weller - the only child of the Edward Weller who had established the Otakou whaling station in 1831.
Tom Ellison won a scholarship to Te Aute school where his rugby career began as a forward before moving to the wing.
On moving to Wellington he began to play for Poneke and was considered an innovative player. He developed the wing-forward position.
He was captain of the first official New Zealand rugby team when it toured Australia in 1893.
Before the tour Ellison is said to be the one who proposed to the first annual general meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union that the team's uniform be a black jersey with silver fern monogram, black cap and stockings and white shorts. With a switch to black shorts in 1901, the uniform from which the name All Blacks came from was now complete.
In 1902 Ellison published The art of rugby football, one of the game’s first coaching manuals.
During the 1888-89 tour of the New Zealand Natives football team they played 107 matches in 54 weeks, 16 of which were spent travelling. Ellison finished the tour as the team's second-highest points scorer with 113 points, including 43 tries.
In his whole career he played 117 matches (68 of them first-class games) and scored 160 points, including 51 tries.
Outside of sport Ellison was a lawyer, one of the first Māori admitted to the bar. He practised as an interpreter for the Land Courts and as a solicitor.
He married Ethel May Howell, on March 22, 1899 and they had three children.
In 1904 he was struck down with tuberculosis, and was admitted to the Porirua Lunatic Asylum - which was quite usual for someone suffering from TB. He died on October 2, 1904.
The original plan to bury him in the Karori Cemetery was changed when representatives of his parents intercepted the body and his wife and the Public Trustee agreed to bury him in Otakou, Otago where his headstone reads “one of the greatest rugby footballers New Zealand ever possessed.”
Pic of The Invincibles from the Te Papa Collection.