Henry Ernest Searle

Infobox Person
name = Henry Ernest Searle


image_size = 200px
caption = Henry Searle in 1889
birth_name = Henry Searle
birth_date = 1866-07-14
birth_place = Grafton, New South Wales, Australia
death_date = 1889-12-10
death_place = Melbourne, Australia
death_cause = Typhoid
resting_place = Maclean cemetery
residence =
nationality = Australian
other_names =
title = World champion sculler
height =
weight =
term = 1888-1889
party =
spouse =
children =
parents = Henry Searle and Mary Ann Brooks

Henry Ernest Searle(1866-1889), was a professional Australian sculler, who was World Champion from 1888 until his premature death from typhoid in 1889.

Born on 14 July 1866 at Grafton, New South Wales to Henry Samuel Searle, bootmaker, and his wife Mary Ann, née Brooks. The family later moved to Esk Island, lower Clarence River, where they farmed at subsistence level.

culling career

Searle soon learnt to scull and rowed his brother and sisters three miles (4.8.km) to and from school. At 18 Searle first competed in a skiff race and for three years raced with some success at local regattas. His first important victory was the defeat of a Sydney professional in an out-rigger handicap at Grafton in January 1888.

Moving to Sydney, Searle was coached by an established sculler Neil Matterson, and with the financial backing of John and Thomas Spencer (Sydney brothers who a decade earlier had backed Edward Trickett), he began a strenuous training programme and won four matches between June and October.

After failing to get a match with the former world champion Ned Hanlan, Searle challenged the then champion Peter Kemp, and on 27 October on the Parramatta River he easily won the title. Searle, Matterson and other 'cracks', including Bill Beach, next competed in the 'Grand Aquatic Carnival' rowed in Brisbane between 5 and 11 December.

In a heat Searle and Matterson continually and deliberately fouled Beach, for which they were disqualified from the heat but not, to the public's annoyance, from the carnival. Consequently they finished first and third in the final after Beach refused to row. In 1889 with his stocks low Searle went with Matterson to England to race the American champion William O'Connor for £1000; Searle won easily and was recognized as the world's greatest sculler.

While returning to Australia in the Austral, Searle contracted typhoid fever; he left the ship at Melbourne, and died three weeks later on 10 December 1889 at the Williamstown Sanatorium, after a very public illness. The colonies plunged into mourning with editorials, poems and sermons bewailing the loss of the young hero. Thousands lined Melbourne streets to see his body pass, and in Sydney an estimated crowd of 170,000 packed the city for his memorial service. Approximately 2500 attended in stifling heat to see him buried in the Maclean cemetery.

Searle was a great sculler; no stylist, he had a powerful action characterized by perfect boat control; he trained much harder than was usual and could break opponents with sudden, repeated and sustained bursts of speed. He was 5 ft 10 ins (178 cm) tall, rowed at 11 stone 9 lbs. (74 kg), but weighed 13 stone 3 lbs. (84 kg) when out of training; his measurements were: chest 41½ ins (105 cm), biceps 13½ ins (34 cm), forearm 11 ins (28 cm), thigh 22 ins (56 cm) and calf 16 ins (41 cm). He was quiet with a genial and unassuming disposition.

A memorial to Searle, erected in 1891, stands on The Brothers rocks at the finish of the Parramatta River course.

References

* S. C. Bennett, "The Clarence Comet: The career of Henry Searle", 1866-89, 1973
* Town and Country Journal, 14 Sept, 14 Dec 1889
* H. E. Searle, ‘How I won the world's championship’, Leeds Times, 5 Oct 1889
* Sydney Morning Herald, 16, 17 Dec 1889.
* Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, 1976, pp 99-100.
* Vanity Fair, "H. Searle/ Professional Champion Sculler of the World" (Spy), September 7, 1889
* http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA19940303035 Henry Searle Sculling Monument