Eric Lupton - The Last European Sculling Champion

Doggett's winners, ca. 1960: Harold Green (1924), Eric Lupton (1940), George Gobbett (1913) and Kenneth Collins (1957).

Some days ago, HTBS received an interesting e-mail from Colin Collier in Gravesend. He wanted to say that he was pleased to have come across an entry on HTBS, from 10 June, 2009, where Eric Lupton, the professional sculler was mentioned. Lupton was the 1940 Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race winner in a race held in 1947 (as there were no Doggett’s races during the Second World War). Colin writes in his e-mail: ‘Just after the War the Gravesend Regattas were started and I lived then a short distance from the riverside pub The Ship and Lobster - this was the Gravesend centre for professional scullers. My father, who was a Thames Waterman, was involved with the revival and was a friend of Eric Lupton and the Palmer family who were all professional scullers.’

Eric Lupton is mostly famous for racing Eric Phelps (on the left) for the professional European Sculling Championship. First time they met for the championship was in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1950. One of the famous rowing journalists and writers at that time was the Evening Standard’s Hylton Cleaver. He was a good friend of many professional oarsmen and he was involved in setting up the first meeting between the two Erics. On a website run by Lupton’s grandson, Nigel, you can read a letter of 25 April, 1950 that Cleaver wrote to Eric Lupton, here.

Phelps won the title in 1950 time, but lost it in 1954 to Lupton, who became the last European Professional Sculling Champion. To continue with Colin’s e-mail: ‘Eric Lupton was aided in his training by Dan Blackman who went to Germany with Eric [Lupton], who lost to Eric Phelps. When they [later] raced at Gravesend, I saw the whole race in Palmer’s motor boat which was following [the race]. I was 15 years old at that time, and I had started sculling myself which was known as “best boat rowing” locally. My boat was called Squeak which was originally owned by another Waterman, George Morgan.’ And Colin adds: ‘what memories you have stirred.’

How did it then go with Colin’s own sculling career? He writes: ‘I subsequently had a accident and dislocated my elbow which finished my sculling activities.’ Colin goes on by saying, ‘Interestingly, I applied to join the Gravesend Rowing Club, I was an apprenticed engineer and was told I could not join because I was an artisan.’ Colin finishes his e-mail by saying: ‘Eric Lupton and I had been good friends ever since he lived near me and he passed away about four years ago.’

There is a 1950 race report from the German rowing magazine Rudern here (in an English Google translation!)

My warmest thanks to Colin for sharing this exiting information!

Tales Of Jack Beresford

For those of you who read HTBS regularly, Jack Beresford Jnr of Thames Rowing Club is by now a household name. He is one of the HTBS editor’s ‘rowing heroes’, not only because he was such a tremendous oarsman with five Olympic medals in five Olympic Games, but also because he was a true hero. When he was 70 – and I am quoting myself from my column ‘In this month…’ January/February 2010 Rowing & Regatta:

“… in summer 1969, when Jack was umpiring at the National School’s regatta at Pangbourne, a tragedy occurred that would cast a dark shadow over his final years. A member of the Norwich School eight caught a crab and was thrown overboard. Jack was quickly there with his launch, taking off his jacket and shoes, to dive in. A strong current took them both underwater and the boy slipped away. Jack was picked up by a launch, while the boy was later found dead. [- - -] Not being able to save the boy, Jack took the accident very hard.”

When I was in contact with Jack’s children Carina and John about this tragedy, they both agreed that due to this incident Jack sometime later lost the sight of an eye and his health began to declined. He died of a heart attack on 3 December, 1977.

I ended my little piece in the Rowing & Regatta with a highly valuable question: “…why has there never been a full-length biography written about this great, brave Olympian oarsman?”.

Well, my question still stands, but in 1989 BBC showed a fairly long film about Jack Beresford in the series Tales of Gold (also a book with the same title, published the same year). The other day this part was uploaded on YouTube – thank you, thank you for this cultural achievement! Here it is – enjoy:

More Tobacco Cards

Bernard Hempseed of New Zealand sent me an e-mail today about some of the tobacco cards he has in his collection. Bernard writes,

Further to the three cards you loaded on HTBS on 23 April. Here are some scans of several others that I have. The two from ‘Who’s Who in Sport’ (Major Goodsell; above) were issued in the UK and Commonwealth countries by Lambert & Butler in 1926, and there are 50 in the set.

The card from ‘Sports Champions’ (E.A. 'Ted' Phelps; on the left) was issued by Ardath in 1935 and again 50 in the set. The card from ‘Champions’ (Eric Phelps) was issued by Gallagher also in 1935.

The card from ‘Kings of Speed’ (Henry 'Bobby' Pearce) was issued by Churchman in 1939 which would have been one of the last sets issued before WWII which stopped most issues.

There may be other cards from other series and/or issuers but these are the ones I know of.

An earlier set were the ones from Allen & Ginter (USA) which was called ‘The World’s Champions’ and had the following: William Beach, John Teemer, Ned Trickett, Ned Hanlan, Wallace Ross, Jake Gaudaur, George Hosmer, John Mckay, Albert Hamm, and George Bubear. These were issued in 1887. They are hard to get but high quality copies exist on the net and can be downloaded. Hanlan, Beach, Gaudaur, and Teemer also feature on a set of ‘Old Judge’ cards, I guess issued about the same time. These can also be found on the net.

Thank you, Bernard! If you are getting interested in collecting cards of this kind, go to Bill Miller's web site, Friends of Rowing History, by clicking here.

Ted and Eric Phelps: Two Professional Sculling Brothers

In my entry of June 1, I briefly mentioned Eric Phelps (to the left). Here is a little more about him and his famous brother, Ted Phelps (to the right, wearing his Thomas Doggett’s coat with the badge).

Of course, telling any story about the Phelps brothers, one should begin with their father, J. T. “Bossie” Phelps, who according to Hylton Cleaver, was the “last great professional coach, certainly so far as tideway rowing is concerned…”. Although, it seems Bossie Phelps was a magnificent rowing coach, he did not have any champion sculling title himself to back it up with; not that he actually needed one. He passed on his skills to his two sons, Ted, born in 1908, and Eric, born in 1912.

When Bossie died at the age of 64, during the Second World War, he had seen both his sons become sculling champions. At the age of 18, Ted won the Newcastle Handicap, which at the time was the prime professional race in Northern England. Two years later, in 1928, Ted went to South America for a coaching job in Montevideo, but returned to London in 1930 to challenge Ernest Barry’s nephew, Bert Barry, for the World Sculling Championship title. Ted won the title, and three months later he entered the Thomas Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race, which is the oldest rowing race in the world, instigated by the Irish comedy actor Thomas Doggett, and sculled for the first time in 1715 on the Thames. Ted Phelps did not have a difficult time winning this race. Normally, of course, winning Doggett’s coat and badge was a good start of your professional rowing career, where the height might have been to crown it with the world title. Here Ted did it in the reverse order, which was rare.

Ted retained the world title against Bert Barry (seen on the left) later that year, and also kept it successfully against Major Goodsell of Australia in 1932. One year later, Ted lost the title to the Australian Bobby Pearce, who was living in Canada. In 1935, Ted Phelps raced against Bert Barry for the British Championship between Putney and Mortlake on the Thames. Ted won, but lost the title the next year to Bert’s brother, Lou Barry.

As Bossie had forbidden Ted and Eric to race each other for a champion title, Eric, who had won the Thomas Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race in 1933, took the opportunity to challenge Lou Barry for the British title later in 1936. Eric was triumphant and beat Lou for the title. Half a year later they met for a return match, and again Eric came out on top. In 1935, Eric Phelps went to Germany to become a private coach to Georg von Opel. When the war broke out, he was interned. After the war had ended, Eric worked in Argentina as a coach for three years, between 1947 and 1950.

Back in London, in 1950, a race between Eric Phelps and Eric Lupton (a Thomas Doggett Coat and Badge winner in 1947 for the postponed 1940 race) was set up in Frankfurt, Germany for a European Championship. Phelps won the title this time, but later lost it to Lupton, who became the last European Professional Champion.