Alexander McCulloch

Alexander McCulloch was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1887. His Scottish-born father George was a wealthy sheep farmer, boat builder, and silver and gold mining company director. His mother was Mary Agnes Smith, McCulloch’s housekeeper who was married to James Mayger at the time of his birth. When Alexander was born, she put Mayger’s name on the birth certificate as the father. Mayger died in August 1892 and, shortly afterwards, George and Mary moved to London and got married. Sometime after that, Alexander started using the name McCulloch.

Alexander was educated at Winchester, and University College, Oxford. He won his rowing Blue in 1908 but was on the losing Oxford eight. It was as a sculler, however, that McCulloch excelled and, after finishing runner-up in the Diamond Sculls at Henley in 1907, he won the coveted title the following year. Also in 1908, he won a silver medal in the single sculls at the London Olympics when he engaged in a thrilling race, when narrowly beaten by Harry Blackstaffe, who celebrated his 40th birthday just three days before the final. McCulloch was half his age at the time.

McCulloch was the Diamond Sculls runner-up again in 1912 when injury prevented him from making the Stockholm Olympics. He later turned to coaching scullers and in 1923 he helped coach the Christiania Rowing Club (Norway) in preparation for the Henley Regatta.

McCulloch’s father was a great friend of the Italian-born American painter John Singer Sargent and in 1901 McCulloch, his father and Sargent all went on a fishing holiday to Norway. During the vacation, Sargent captured the young McCulloch in what became a famous painting entitled “On His Holidays.” McCulloch senior had a share in the New South Wales mining company at Broken Hill (BHP), and when he died in 1907 he left nearly half-a-million pounds in his will, equivalent to around £53 million in 2020, much of it from his collection of fine art.

Alexander was married three times and his first wife Lesley subsequently married the uncle of King Farouk of Egypt, Prince Abdullah Ben Ayad.