Photograph: Werner Schmidt

Monday, September 9, 2013

Canadian Champion Sculler Ned Hanlan

A statue of Ned Hanlan. To honour his achievements, the City of Toronto erected a monument of Hanlan by sculptor Emanuel Hahn in 1926. Photo courtesy rowing historian Bill Lanouette.

As the frequent reader of HTBS knows by now, this blog is about, among other things, rowing history. If we happen to come across a piece of rowing history elsewhere, we gladly point our readers in that direction. Therefore, in last Saturday's Torontoist, a blog/newspaper/magazine (take your pick), Kevin Plummer wrote a piece about Ned Hanlan, "Historicist: The People's Champion". It is a well-written article (we forgive Plummer for calling 'sculling': 'single-sculls rowing'), though Hanlan historians will not find anything new about the Canadian sculling champion, but the article is interesting, also for its illustrations. Enjoy Kevin Plummer's article by reading it here.

4 comments:

  1. in 1986 Hanlan's life story inspired a film with a young Nicolas Cage, The Boy In Blue. It is reviewed here:

    http://www.twrc.rowing.org.uk/movies/boyinblue.htm

    Tim Koch.

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  2. Do you know anything about the Hanlan Boat Song which was performed around Ontario after his feat?

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  3. Yes, I think I have. At least I have seen an old music sheet which was a song about Ned Hanlan, celebrating him as a sculling champion. Let me look into this...

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  4. Here is something I found on the web, sheet music about Ned Hanlan, "The Hanlan Galop" although, this is not what I mentioned in my earlier reply. I will keep looking...

    https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/7881?show=full

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