John Hanbury-Williams

John Hanbury-Williams was the first Canadian member of the IOC, serving from 1911-1921, although he lived in Canada for only five years of his life, and never while an IOC Member. Hanbury-Williams was a career military man and a native of Wales. He attended Wellington College and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. In 1878 he was commissioned into the 43rd Light Infantry. After several assignments he was appointed Governor-General of Canada in 1904, serving there until 1909, the only five years he lived in Canada. In 1909 Hanbury-Williams was promoted to Brigadier-General in charge of Scottish Administration and served there until 1914. During that time, de Coubertin named him to the IOC. During World War I, Hanbury-Williams served in Russia but left quickly in late 1917 when the Russian Revolution was brewing. He retired from the Army in 1919 with the rank of Major-General. After his experience in Russia, he became a fierce opponent of Bolshevism and was a founding member of the Liberty League in the UK, which opposed that political creed. Hanbury-Williams received the following honors: CMG (1899), CVO (1902), KCVO (1908), KCB (1917), AND GCVO (1926).

In his 10 years on the IOC, John Hanbury-Williams attended the Congress of 1914 and the Sessions of 1919 and 1920, and then resigned from the Committee in 1921. In 1915 Theodore Andrea Cook, IOC Member in Britain, resigned in protest over allowing German IOC Members to remain on the Committee. Coubertin then asked Hanbury-Williams if he would serve for Great Britain on the IOC, but the General demurred. Hanbury-Williams had no other experience in sports administration and listed his sports interests as hunting, shooting, and horseback riding, all endeavors he learned in the military.