William Elliott

William Elliott was a professional rower who held the Championship of England. He was born on the 26th November 1849 and came from Pegswood, Morpeth, Northumberland.

17th June 1789
The London Illustrated News reported: - THE SCULLING CHAMPIONSHIP - The sculling race for the Championship Challenge Cup and a stake of £200 a side, between Edward Hanlan, of Toronto, Canada, the champion of Canada and the United States, and William Elliott, of Pegswood, Champion of England, was rowed yesterday, on the Tyne, and resulted in the easy victory of the transatlantic sculler. Of late there have been a considerable number of international contests in all branches of sport, and the representatives of this country have suffered defeat on several occasions, though it is true that some of them have been effected by rivals hailing from the colonies. There have been but few international sculling races, though four-oared contests between English and Foreign crews have often been rowed. In 1863 Green, the sculling champion of Australia came over to this country and measured his strength against our then champion, Robert Chambers, of St. Anthonys, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and after leading for a mile and a half, was rowed down and passed by Chambers, who was then in his prime. In 1866 Henry Kelley, of Putney, defeated James Hamill, of Pittsburgh, U.S.A., the American champion, in two races on the Tyne with consummate ease but no fresh match was made until 1869, when Walter Brown came over to row J.H. Sadler; there was however, no contest as the American become ill and was obliged to forfeit his stake, though he subsequently managed to defeat Sadler's younger brother in a race for £50 on the Tyne. Edward Trickett, of Sydney, New South Wales, came over to England in the spring of 1876 and on the 28th of June having been for some time under the tuition of Henry Kelly, easily defeated J.H. Sadler in a match for the championship. Subsequent events, however,|proved that Sadler, who was nearly 40 years of age, had lost his form, and Trickett, although undoubtedly a good man, was probably not so fast as he was thought at the time to be, and would in all probability have suffered defeat from Higgins, Boyd, or Elliott of this country, to say nothing of Hanlan and Courtney, of North America. The Regatta held at Philadelphia in the autumn of 1876 on the occasion of the Centennial Exhibition, in which numerous competitors from Great Britain and Ireland, both amateur and professional, took part, and in which the Americans proved quite equal to their guests, no doubt led to the transatlantic visits of oarsmen and scullers to this country

In 1874, Edward Hanlan lost his amateur status and having struggled to find good opponents in Canada or the Americas, in 1876 he came to England and was matched against John Hawdon, of Delaval, for a stake of £200 a side. The Champion had been previously matched to row an unknown sculler. On May 5th, Hanlan defeated Hawdon easily, and the name of the unknown was declared the same evening, and proved to be Hanlan. The match now under notice was ratified and has been proceeded with in due course.

William Elliott, of Pegswood, was born on the 26th of November 1849, and is a thick-set, powerfully built man of about 5 ft. 7in. in height, and scaled 11st. 2lb. About five years ago he displayed a taste for sculling and was matched against a man named Martin, whom he defeated in a race over a two mile course on the river Blyth on the 18th of April. After varying fortune in several minor matches he beat Hogarth, of Sunderland, in a match for £80 on the Tyne, in 1877 but he was compelled to succumb to Nicholson of Stockton, in the first heat of the races for the then newly-established Champion Challenge Cup. In the June following, however, he met and easily defeated Tarryer, of Rotherhithe, in a race for £200 from the High Level Bridge to Scotswood Suspension-bridge on the Tyne, the Thames man never having a chance. On the 15th of January 1878, Elliott was matched to row Robert Bagnall, of Ousehurn, for £100, on the Tyne, and easily beat him. He did not rest long on his laurels, for a match was made for him to scull W. Nicholson, oi Stockton, it being arranged that the winner should challenge Higgins, of London. The two men met on the 4th of March, when the river was unusually rough, and Elliott, who was the more powerful sculler of the two, won easily, Nicholson being unable to show to advantage in the rough water. Elliott was then matched to row H. Thomas, of Hammersmith, for £100 a side, and very easily beat him in race on the Thames on the 6th of May following. On the 3rd of June he mat John Higgins, of Shadwell, in a race for £200 and the Champion Challenge Cup, over the usual Thames course from Putney to Mortlake, and after a splendid contest to the Soapworks at Hammersmith, Higgins drew away from Elliott and won easily, thus making good his title to the cup, which he had won on two previous occasions. Elliott was one of the oarsmen who rowed in the winning champion four-oared crew at the Thames International Regatta on the 2nd of September, and easily defeated Higgins in the final heat of the champion sculls; but as the latter caught a crab soon after the start, this was thought to have prejudiced his chance of victory.

A new Champion Challenge Cup having been presented by the proprietors of a London sporting newspaper a competition for it commenced on the l6th of September, when Elliott defeated Higgins in the first heat rowed from Putney to Mortlake, after a good race for a mile. The next day Elliott met R. W. Boyd, who had defeated Blackman in the second heat, and although Boyd held a four lengths lead at Craven Cottage, the Pegswood sculler rowed him down opposite the Oil Mills, where a foul took place, Boyd being to blame; but though Boyd continued in front to the end, Elliott had the race awarded to him by the umpire. Not being satisfied with his defeat Higgins challenged Elliott to row again for the Cup, and tho two scullers met on 17th of February last on the Tyne for £200 a side, when after a tremendous struggle for a mile Elliott drew is front and ultimately won easily by two lengths. These are the principal performances of the Tyne man, who, although very powerful and possessed of great staying powers, could not by any means be called a finished sculler such as Kelley, Cooper, or Robert Chambers. He had, however, improved when he met Higgins in February last; but alter the race in which Hanlan heat Hawdon on the 5th May, Elliott has been using not only the longslide, but also tho swivel rowlocks and the wide-bladed sculls of the Canadian sculler, and has to some extent adopted his style, rowing fewer strokes in a minute than he used to do, and pulling a considerably longer stroke through the water. As to the judiciousness of this change in style almost at the eleventh hour opinions varied.

On the day of the great Hanlan versus Elliott race, the conditions were good and the banks were lined with large numbers of spectators. The time fixed for the start was a quarter to 12 o'clock, and about half an hour previously the different steamers which were to accompany the race commenced to receive their freights, some of them being in a very short time so crowded that there appeared some danger of them being upset, while the Gateshead, which carried Dr. Luke Armstrong, the umpire, was so overfreighted that it was scarcely possible to move about on her, and she rolled from side to side in a most unpleasant manner; besides which, being an old boat, she was quite unable to keep up with the race, and had the winning post been at Lemington Point her occupants would not have seen the finish of the contest. There were in all perhaps 20 steamers in attendance, some of which took up their positions astern of the scullers, while others were moored some distance in front of the competitors on the south side of the river. Shortly after half-past 11 o'clock Hanlan's 10-oared cutter was descried rowing down under the south bank of the river, having on board his sculling boat, the "Toronto", which was taken to Boyd's boathouse, just below the Swing-bridge. A few minutes later the umpire’s steamer left her landing stage at the Close, and steamed over to the south shore.