Joe Cartwright (rugby league)
Joe Cartwright (Joseph Cartwright) was an English rugby league player who starred in the 1910s and 1920s. He played as a hooker for Leigh from 1911 to 1926, making 348 appearances and scoring seven tries. He also played for Lancashire, England and Great Britain, earning England caps in 1921, 1922 and 1923, and Great Britain caps in 1920 and 1921–22. Cartwright was part of the 1920 Great Britain Lions tour and played in Leigh’s 13-0 victory over Halifax in the 1920-21 Challenge Cup Final.
Cartwright was born on 29 December 1890 in Leigh, Lancashire, the ninth child of coal miner Allen Cartwright and Ellen Houghton Cartwright. By 1911 he worked as a colliery foreman assistant while playing rugby. He married Mary Alice Newton in 1921, and they had four children: Sydney, Marion, Alice and Harold.
After retiring from rugby in 1926, Cartwright worked at Parsonage Colliery in Leigh, building underground roads. He faced health issues later, including eye trouble in 1937, a mine accident in 1947 that affected his right eye, and a persistent cough that led to his retirement in July 1949. He died on 17 December 1949 in Leigh. An autopsy found his death was due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema) in the right lung, with the coroner concluding it was from natural causes; there were only slight signs of pneumoconiosis.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:03 (CET).