William Elliott

William Elliott was a professional rower from Pegswood, Morpeth, Northumberland and also held the Championship of England.

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