Birth name | Richard Adrian William Sharp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 9 September 1938 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Bangalore, British India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
School | Blundell's School | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
University | Balliol College, University of Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notable relative(s) | Freddie Sharp, (father) Ivan Sharp, (uncle) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Richard Adrian William Sharp OBE (born 9 September 1938) is an English retired rugby union player. Born in India during the British Raj, his family moved to Cornwall, England, where he was educated at Montpelier School, Paignton and Blundell's School in the neighbouring county of Devon [1] and at Balliol College, Oxford. He is a former player at Redruth R.F.C., Wasps FC, Bristol FC [2] and England (14 caps) rugby union fly-half and captain. He played for England while at Oxford [3] and led England to the Five Nations title in 1963. [4] He played cricket for Cornwall in the Minor Counties Championship between 1957 and 1970. [5]
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1986 New Year Honours, for services to Sport, particularly in the South West. [6]
Bernard Cornwell named the fictional character Richard Sharpe after him. [7] [8]
Bernard Cornwell is a British-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written The Saxon Stories, a series of 13 novels about the making of England.
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Blundell's School is an independent co-educational boarding and day school in the English public school tradition, located in Tiverton, Devon. It was founded in 1604 under the will of Peter Blundell, one of the richest men in England at the time, and moved to its present site on the outskirts of the town in 1882.
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