A GREAT OARSMAN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 283, 27 August 1935, Page 14

A GREAT OARSMAN

Tragic Death of Guy

Nickalls

England lost another great rowing stalwart by the death in Leeds on July 8 of Mr. Guy Nickalls, following a car crash on the previous Sunday. Mr. Nickalls, who was 68, was motoring t o Scotland to join his wife on a fishing holiday.

Mr. Nickalls’s death is the more tragic as on the Sunday Lord Ampthill, his partner in memorable triumphs at 'Henley, died from pneumonia. Guy Nickalls’s rowing record will probably stand for all time. To the end he never lost his affection for a sport to which he had contributed so much. He rowed in five Oxford crews against Cambridge—from 1887 to 1891 —twice in the winning boat. Either side of a boat suited Guy Nickalls—in 1887 he was at No. 2, the two following years saw him at 7, in 1890 he pulled No. 6, and in his last year he was at 4.

His amazing versatility is perhaps better illustrated by his five successes in the Henley Diamonds —two wins, with

Lord Ampthill, in the Goblets —and his inclusion in the Leander crew which won the Grand in 1891. Leander's'time, 6.51, has only twice been equalled. Seventeen years after his last appearance in the Oxford boat, Nickalls rowed in one of the most memorable races ever held.

He was then 40—an age when most men have forsaken competitive rowing—but he was No. 4 in the Leander crew which carried off the Olympic race for eights at Henley in 1908. The time of the winners, they beat the crack Belgian crew by a couple of lengths, was 7.52. This was Nickalls’s last race, and he, with many others, considered it his greatest achievement. Jie took 'his part in the war with the hosi of rowing men who flocked t 0 the colojirs, and he led his company of the 23rd Lancashire Fusiliers in France until 1918. In later life he turned to less active pastimes—hunting, fishing, tennis and shooting. All went to appease his mission for perfect physical fitness. Third son of the late Tom Nickalls. of Patteson Court, Nutfield, he married, in 1898, Miss Ellen Gilbey Gold, and he leaves two sons, of whom Guy Oliver has made almost as big a reputation on the river as his father.