William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough

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William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough (1921)

William Henry Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough , KG , GCVO , (born October 30, 1855 in London , † January 9, 1945 in Hertford ) was a British athlete, politician and sports official.

Both his father Charles William Grenfell and his uncle Henry Riversdale Grenfell and his great-grandfather Pascoe Grenfell had been MPs in the British House of Commons . After growing up at Taplow Court , William Grenfell trained at Harrow School , a renowned boarding school. He then studied at Balliol College .

Sports

He competed in rowing races for the University of Oxford and was president of both the rowing club and the athletics club. 1877 and 1878 rowed the Oxford eighth in the traditional Boat Race against the University of Cambridge (one draw and one victory). From 1888 to 1890 he was British punt champion three times in a row ; In addition, he crossed the English Channel with an eight and needed 22 hours for the route London − Oxford on the Thames , which he and his two companions set a new record. In addition to rowing, William Grenfell practiced numerous other sports. Twice he swam across the Niagara River immediately below the Niagara Falls , climbed numerous four-thousand-meter peaks in the Valais Alps ( he conquered the Matterhorn on three different routes), went fishing and went hunting for big game.

In later years he was a member of the race management of the Henley Royal Regatta , was president of the Amateur Fencing Association (British fencing association), the Marylebone Cricket Club and the Lawn Tennis Association (British tennis association). In 1906, at the age of 51, he took part in the unofficial Olympic Intermediate Games and won the silver medal with the British fencing team. In the same year he was appointed a member of the International Olympic Committee by Pierre de Coubertin . In 1905 he had been elected the first President of the British Olympic Association ; in this office (which he held until 1913) he was largely responsible for ensuring that the 1908 Summer Olympics took place in London; he also took over the chairmanship of the organizing committee. The President of the American National Olympic Committee , Caspar Whitney , wanted him to be elected President of a new international Olympic Committee as a kind of full assembly of the National Olympic Committees. Desborough did not agree to this.

politics

In addition to his commitment as an athlete and sports official, William Grenfell was also politically active. In 1880 the member of the Liberal Party was elected to the British House of Commons. He lost his seat two years later, but was re-elected in 1885. As an MP, he was also the private secretary of Chancellor William Vernon Harcourt . He lost his seat in parliament after just a year when the government of William Ewart Gladstone was overthrown.

Grenfell was not re-elected to parliament until 1892. However, he did not want to support Gladstone's second Home Rule bill and preferred to step down in September 1893. He joined the Conservative Party and was re-elected in 1900. In addition to his work in parliament, he held numerous municipal offices and was represented on the supervisory boards of several organizations. He was also President of the London Chamber of Commerce and the British Agricultural Association. For his sporting and political merits, William Grenfell was knighted as Baron Desborough , of Taplow in the County of Buckinghamshire, in 1905 , which was associated with a seat in the House of Lords .

During the First World War , he represented the Minister of Munitions in France, ran a naval hospital in Southend-on-Sea and made his property available to Taplow Court to house hundreds of Canadian nurses who were serving in a neighboring hospital. In 1921 he declined to become Governor General of Canada for family reasons . From 1924 to 1929 he was in command of the Yeomen of the Guard .

Through his wife, Ethel Priscilla Fane, whom he married in 1887, Grenfell gained access to the highest social circles in England. She hosted Friday-Monday parties, extravagant costume balls, and garden parties that drew visitors to Taplow Court, including the royal family. The couple had three sons and two daughters. William Grenfell died in 1945 at the age of 89. Two of his sons were killed in the First World War. Since the third had died before, the title expired with his death.

Others

Desborough Island , an island in the Thames, and the Desborough Cut Canal are named after him.

Web links

Commons : William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Holt: Sport and the British. A modern history. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992
  2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : The Oxbridge Connection: Coubertin and British Sport until the IOC was founded, in: R. NAUL & M. LÄMMER (eds.): The men around Willibaldt Gebhardt. Beginnings of the Olympic Movement in Europe. Aachen: Meyer & Meyer 2002, 107 - 131.
  3. ↑ Don Anthony: An alternative view of Coubertin. In: Journal of Olympic History. Retrieved January 3, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Monica Salmons: William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough. LG Wickham, ET Williams (Ed.): Dictionary of national biography. 1941-1950 . Oxford: OUP. http://www.grenfellhistory.co.uk/biographies/william_henry_grenfell.php
personal data
SURNAME Grenfell, William, 1st Baron Desborough
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grenfell, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British athlete, sports official and politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1945
Place of death Hertford