From “dirty water” to Olympic gold
Henry Taylor
“Henry Taylor, a twenty-three-year-old Englishman, emerged as the first authentic swimming star of the Olympics.” – Dick Schaap, sports historian.
Henry Taylor deserves his accolade as Britain’s greatest amateur swimmer. He dominated British middle distance swimming in the early 1900s. He won three gold medals for Great Britain at the 1908 Games. In total, he competed at four Olympic Games and won eight medals, more than any other British competitor in the history of the Olympics.
He was born in 1885 at Hollinwood, Oldham, to James and Elizabeth Taylor. His father was a coal miner. He was orphaned at an early age and was brought up by his elder brother, William. His upbringing was hard and he was poorly educated. He was a popular and cheerful lad. When he left school, he went to work in the local cotton mill.
Taylor learnt to swim in the local Hollinwood Canal and swam at the central baths in Oldham on the so-called “dirty water” days when the admission charges were reduced. He swam his first race at the baths aged seven. It was a two-length race for boys which he won and received a silver medal. His success inspired his love for the sport and he joined the local Chadderton swimming club. His brother acted as his trainer, but he spent a lot of time training alone in open water in the Hollinwood Canal during his lunch breaks, and then in the Alexandra Boating Lake in Oldham in the evening. The way he resolutely ploughed his path through the boats on the lake made him a popular spectacle.
By his early twenties, competing for the Chadderton Swimming Club, he had proved himself to be a formidable distance swimmer though he had not yet won any major championship. He was a stocky man, five foot five inches, and, at his best, around ten-and-a-half stone. His particular strength was the so-called “trudgen” stroke, a double over-arm stroke requiring considerable upper body strength and stamina, and which generated a very powerful drive from a most effective scissor kick.
His first major swimming success was in the interim 1906 Olympic Games in Athens. He went to the Games as a travelling reserve and his success was a major surprise since he had not had the benefit of proper training facilities. However, the swimming events were held in the open sea at Phalerum Bay and the waves could be very rough at times, making it difficult for the swimmers to breathe.
The organisation was also poor. No one seemed to know when the next race would take place and the judges had difficulty in keeping the swimming lanes free from private boats. Taylor’s experience of all those hours of swimming in Alexandra Park served him well and he seemed to thrive in the conditions.
He mastered the waves, and went on to win the gold medal for the 1 mile swim in a time of 28 min 28 sec, nearly two minutes ahead of his nearest rival.
So determined was he to win the medal, he kept his head firmly down in the last stages of the race and swam further than the actual distance! He followed up his success at Athens by winning a silver medal for the 400 metres and a bronze in the 4x200 metres relay race.
The 1908 London Games were the scene of Henry Taylor’s greatest triumph. The swimming events were held in a 100 metre pool for the first time. He won individual gold medals in the 1500 metres and the 400 metres, as well as a gold for his part in the victorious British 4x200 metres relay team. In both the 400 and 1500 metre races he established the first official world records.
Taylor’s performance in the relay was equally remarkable. Swimming the anchor leg, he entered the water three yards down on the American, Rich, and ten behind the powerful Hungarian swimmer, Halmay. Showing great determination, Taylor caught up with Rich fifty yards from home. It still seemed probable that the Hungarian would win, but he was swimming erratically and suffering from cramp. Suddenly he veered across the course and struck the side of the pool. Taylor powered on to pass and win by five yards. Halmay, who had lost consciousness, had to be hauled from the pool before he drowned.
Taylor returned home to Lancashire in triumph to a tumultuous reception. He competed again for Great Britain in the 1912 and 1920 Olympiads held in Stockholm and Antwerp respectively but not quite so successfully.
By then the American swimmers had perfected the new front crawl stroke for middle distance swimming which was faster than the trudgen. Nevertheless, Taylor still won a bronze medal in the 4x200 metres relay at both events. If war had not forced the cancellation of the 1916 Games he would have surely added to this tally.
Back at home he dominated swimming competitions for several years. The famous Morecambe Bay race was one of his favourite competitions. He swam the 13 mile race for twenty years, winning it from 1910 to 1914, and four more times after the war.
In 1914 he had swum across the bay in just over two hours, a time so fast that cynics accused him of running over sandbanks! His winning times will never be bettered as the course has been altered considerably over the years.
During World War I, Taylor served in the Royal Navy as an able seaman and was soon acknowledged as the Navy’s champion swimmer. To achieve this distinction he had to swim around the British fleet at anchorage at Scapa Flow, which he repeated on a number of occasions. Given the size of the fleet at that time, and the temperature of the sea, this was an extraordinary exploit. Much less known is Henry Taylor’s reputation as something of a war hero. In the Battle of Jutland in 1916 his ship was sunk, and he and others of the ship’s company were in the sea for two hours before being rescued. Apparently, Henry Taylor swam around his fellow shipmates urging them to keep afloat, and encouraging them not to despair (www.chadderton-hs.freeuk.com).
He retired from swimming in 1926. He was a handsome man but, reportedly, as a young man, “he was never allowed near the ladies”, because his brother felt it would interfere with his training. (Oldham Evening Chronicle). He remained a bachelor all his life. Lacking a formal education, he found life difficult in his later years.
He mortgaged his thirty-five trophies and more than three hundred medals to buy a pub but it was not a success, and he never redeemed them. Unemployed for several years, the local council eventually found him a post as an attendant at Chadderton swimming baths where he had spent many hours as a boy and young man.
A quiet man, he never boasted about his achievements at the Olympic Games. He died at his home just behind the Chadderton Baths in October 1951 at the age of sixty-five. In 1969 his memory was honoured at the Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida. In England, a blue plaque was unveiled to this great but neglected swimmer at the sports centre in Chadderton in 2002.