Roland George first took up rowing when he went up to Lincoln College, Oxford from Wycliffe College in 1922. He did not succeed in winning a blue and on leaving Oxford began his business career with a firm of printers and packing manufacturers in Bristol which left him with no time to devote to rowing. In 1929 his employers transferred him to their London office and the following year George joined the Thames Rowing Club where he rapidly developed into one of the finest oarsmen in Britain. He was in the Thames eight that lost narrowly in the final of the Grand in both 1931 and 1932, although he was not completely without success at Henley, winning the Wyfold in 1931 and the Stewards’ in 1932. Later in the year he rowed a bow in the coxless four that won the Olympic title at Long Beach, California. In 1933 Roland George married the daughter of Lord Rathcreedan, a marriage which produced three sons and one daughter. In the war, George served in the RAF, rising to the rank of wing commander. He was awarded the OBE in 1943 and at the Salerno landings in 1944 he became the first, possibly the only, member of the RAF’s Equipment Branch to be awarded the DSO.
Great Britain