Wyndham Halswelle

Early life

Born in London to London-born, Edinburgh-trained artist Keeley Halswelle and Helen Marianna Elizabeth Gordon, he is nonetheless usually referred to as being Scottish, the nationality of his maternal grandfather, General Nathaniel J. Gordon. Wyndham Halswelle had a notable athletic career at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before being commissioned into the Highland Light Infantry as a second lieutenant on 8 January 1901. Serving in South Africa in 1902 for the Second Boer War, Halswelle's ability was recognised by Jimmy Curran, a coach and amateur athlete. Halswelle returned to his regiment in January 1903, and was with the 1st battalion as they left South Africa for Egypt the same month. It was Curran who persuaded Halswelle to take up athletics seriously when his regiment returned to Edinburgh in 1904.

Domestic athletics

In 1904 he was army champion for 880 yards, and in 1905 he won the Scottish and AAA 440 yard (402 m) titles. In the 1906 Athens Intercalated Olympics, he achieved a silver medal in the 400 metres and a bronze in the 800 metres. On his return, in a single afternoon in 1906 at the Scottish championships in Powderhall, he won the 100, 220, 440 and 880 yards races (91, 201, 402, 805 m), a feat that has not been matched since. His season was cut short by a leg injury in 1907, but he came back the following year to set a world record of 31.2 s for 300 yards (274 m) and a British record over 440 yards of 48.4 s that lasted over a quarter of a century until it was eventually broken by Godfrey Rampling. In 1908 he set a Scottish 300 yards record that lasted until 1961 when it was beaten by Menzies Campbell, then a Glasgow University student.

1908 Summer Olympics

In 1908 Summer Olympics, Halswelle reached the final of the 400 m with the fastest qualifying time (an Olympic record of 48.4 s). The 400 m was not run in lanes at this point. Halswelle was baulked by William Robbins in the first 50 m. Badger immediately signalled the judges to declare the race void.

Carpenter was disqualified, and the race was ordered to be rerun in lanes two days later; however, the other two U.S. runners refused to race, so a reluctant Halswelle ran the race by himself to win the gold As a result of the controversy, from the next Olympics in 1912 onwards all 400 metre races were run in lanes, and the International Amateur Athletic Federation was founded to establish uniform worldwide rules for athletics.

The controversy soured Halswelle's view of athletics. He was also under pressure from his senior officers, who felt he was being exploited, and he retired from athletics after a farewell appearance at the 1908 Glasgow Rangers Sports.

Death

Halswelle, by then a captain, was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France, during World War I, on 31 March 1915 aged 32 while attempting to rescue an injured fellow officer. Earlier in the same battle (12 March) he was hit by shrapnel or shell fragments while leading his men across an area known as Layes Brook but despite his wounds he refused to be evacuated and continued at the front, although heavily bandaged.

In the issue of the HLI regimental magazine that announced his death also appeared a piece he wrote days before it. It described a battle where 79 of his fellow soldiers died to gain 15 yards:

His grave was marked with a wooden cross, with his name in charcoal. Later his remains were re-interred in the Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard at Laventie, near Armentières.

In 2003, he was posthumously inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame. His Olympic medals and other trophies are displayed there.

Halswelle's regiment, now the Royal Highland Fusiliers, awards the Wyndham Halswelle Memorial Trophy to the winner of the 400 m at the Scottish under-20 championships.

References

References

1. Radford, Ernest. (2004). "Halswelle, Keeley (1832–1891)". [[Oxford University Press]].
2. Gillon, Doug. (21 July 2008). "Hero from a forsaken generation". [[The Herald (Glasgow).
3. Pottle, Mark. (2004). "Halswelle, Wyndham (1882–1915)". Oxford University Press.
4. {{London Gazette. (20 January 1903)
5. (22 January 1903). "Naval & Military intelligence - Troops returning Home".
6. (2 March 2016). "120 years, 120 stories (Part 13) : Even jogging around the park can give an Olympic gold in athletic- Wyndham Halswelle". Sports-nova.com.
7. "Wyndham Halswelle". Olympedia.
8. "Wyndham Halswelle Biography and Olympic Results". Sports Reference LLC.
9. (August 2012). "When The Final Race is Run – A Brief Account of Brief Lives (Olympians at War feature)". [[A History of Conflict, Britain at War (magazine).
10. "Captain Wyndham Halswell | War Casualty Details 597598 | CWGC".
11. "Inductees – Wyndham Halswelle". Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
12. "Wyndham Halswelle". BBC.