Courtenay Verelst

Courtenay Lee Verelst (16 November 1855 – 1 January 1890) was an English rugby union forward who played for Liverpool Football Club and represented England in the formative years of international rugby.

Early life and family background

Verelst was born on 16 November 1855 at Claughton, near Birkenhead, Cheshire. He was the fourth son of Charles Reed (later Charles Verelst) and Ann Jane Willacy.

His father was an architect practising in Liverpool and Birkenhead. In 1851 he adopted the surname Verelst by Royal Licence after succeeding to the Aston Hall estate near Rotherham, Yorkshire. He thereafter became known as Charles Verelst of Aston Hall and Claughton. He died at Claughton on 13 December 1859.

In the early 1860s Verelst's mother, Ann, was recorded as a landed proprietor. Through the Aston Hall inheritance the family was connected with the Yorkshire landed gentry. Verelst's father was the nephew of Henry Verelst, a descendent of the former Governor of Bengal, from whom the Aston Hall estate descended within the wider Verelst family. He was a contemporary there of his younger brother, Horace Devereux Verelst, who entered the school in the same year. He died there on 1 January 1890, aged 34.