Douglas Stuart

The son of a straw-hat manufacturer (very popular attire at the Henley Regatta), Douglas Stuart came from a family of gifted rowers. His older brother Athol won both the Diamond and Wingfield Sculls in 1909, while his younger brother Colin reached the final of the Diamond Sculls in 1914. Their sister Yvonne was a pioneering female rower in the early part of the 20th century and was the first chairman (now chairperson) of the Women’s Amateur Rowing Association.

Douglas Stuart was educated at Cheltenham College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He rowed for Cheltenham in his final year and was also the school gymnastics champion. After going to Cambridge, he was beaten in the final of the Silver Goblets at Henley in 1903, with Charles Steele, when he was aged 17, and again in 1905 (with Charles Fox). Stuart won the Colquhoun Sculls in 1906 and University Pairs in 1907, was in the Trinity Hall crew that was Head of the River in 1907 and 1908, and was stroke to three consecutive winning Boat Race crews 1906-08. He won his fourth Blue in 1909 but was on the losing eight. He was president of the Cambridge University Boat Club that year. Stuart also competed in the 1906 race against Harvard University and, at the 1908 London Olympics, won a bronze medal with the Cambridge eight.

A barrister by profession, Stuart served as a lieutenant in the Border Regiment during World War I but returned to England in 1918, having been wounded in action. A portrait of Stuart by Sir Leslie Ward hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.