THS Walker
Thomas Henry Sumpter Walker , known as THS Walker , (born June 29, 1855 in Cambridge , † May 1, 1936 ) was an English cyclist , cycling official and journalist. He is regarded as the decisive pioneer for cycling in Germany.
Merchant, cyclist and club founder
In 1868 Thomas Walker bought his first bicycle. From 1869 to 1872 he attended the renowned rugby school , where he was also active in other sports. In 1873 he moved to Bad Godesberg and graduated from school there. The following year he volunteered with the 22nd Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps. listed. As a representative of the Howe Machine Company , which also manufactured bicycles, he went to Berlin after 1877 ; later he represented the companies St. George's Engineering , Rudge and Quadrant Tricycle and ran a shop together with a partner named Siemens on Zimmerstrasse in Berlin. 87.
From 1881 onwards, Walker competed and won as an amateur - at that time known as the “gentlemen's driver” - numerous bicycle races on the high-bike across Europe, including in Leipzig, Bremen, Nuremberg, Prague and London; from the mid-1880s onwards he also raced on a tricycle . In 1882 he founded the first Berlin cycling club , the Berlin Bicycle Club , which was later renamed the First Berlin Bicycle Club . Until 1889 he was chairman of this association. He also advocated the founding of new cycling clubs and a German association.
In Berlin, Walker also initiated the association for velocipede races , the purpose of which was to build and operate a cycling track , which opened in 1882 on Brückenallee . In 1886 he organized the congress of the German Cyclists Association (DRB) in Berlin as well as accompanying races in which the "Kaiserpreis" was awarded for the first time and won by the German champion Johannes Pundt . He hosted the first European championships, annual German championships and the Berlin-Hamburg road race in 1889, in which Pundt was also the winner. As an official representative, he also maintained contacts with cycling associations in other countries.
Walker was a strict defender of the amateur status of cyclists and in 1882 introduced amateur rules based on the English model in Germany at a time when there were no cycling professionals there. According to these rules, as a representative of a bicycle company, he was not at all an amateur himself, but this regulation was later changed - apparently at his suggestion - as it affected not only him, but numerous other merchants.
Journalist and editor
From August 1881, THS Walker, who was only known by this abbreviation in cycling circles, published the first German cycling magazine Das Velociped . After the DRB was founded in 1884, the magazine became its official organ under the title Der Radfahrer . Walker, who wrote perfect German, was not only an editor but also worked as a writer. He also published books and brochures, including in 1888 the book The Art of Cycle Racing by the English author George Lacy Hillier, which was held in three languages (English, German, French) .
As a publicist, Walker campaigned for the press and as a private citizen with legal proceedings for the freedom of traffic for cyclists in Berlin, where cycling was at times completely forbidden and later only allowed on a few streets.
Return to England
At the end of the 1880s, as an Englishman, THS Walker found himself increasingly exposed to xenophobic attacks from the ranks of some cycling federations, despite his merits and although he had meanwhile tried to obtain German citizenship. At the end of 1889, at the age of 34, he bitterly gave up all his posts and activities in Berlin and moved back to his country of birth. One of his colleagues, Robert Höfer, wrote: "THS Walker [...] has finally said goodbye to the bicycle movement, annoyed by the myopia of narrow-minded opinions and principles that have become dominant in the German cycling movement."
Nothing is known about Walker's further career. His arrival in New York City as a passenger on the Majestic is documented for 1924 . He then lived in Bristol at the time . In September 1936, a London notary published an advertisement in the London Gazette looking for heirs of Walker, who last lived in Bromley and apparently had no close relatives.
literature
- Rüdiger Rabenstein : "THS Walker - English cycling pioneer in Germany". In: Cycle History . Proceedings of the 5th International Cycling History Conference in Cambridge, England 1994, ed. by Robert van der Plas, San Francisco 1995, pp. 155-160
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The London Gazette , September 1, 1936 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 142 kB)
- ↑ The London Gazette , August 28, 1874 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 101 kB)
- ^ Hillier: The Art of Cycling , Appendix p. 7
- ^ Robert Höfer: Twenty years of German cycling . Berlin 1901, p. 35. Quotation from Rabenstein, back-translated from English.
- ↑ ellisisland.org
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Walker, THS |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Walker, Thomas Henry Sumpter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British cyclist and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 29, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cambridge |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 1, 1936 |