Historical and Art Medals, Numismatic Books

Buckinghamshire, Eton College, a bronze award medal for Rowing, type 4, unsigned [by Birmingham Medal Co], similar, named (S.I. Fairbairn, Trial Eights, Eton 1913), 39mm (D & W 195); together with a shield-shaped bronze plaque from the inside of the medal case, engraved with the names of Fairbairn’s 1914 Trial Eights crew [2]. Virtually as struck; medal in dark blue Rowell and Merrick case [this somewhat distressed] (£30-40)

Provenance:
Glendining Auction, 12 May 1982, lot 331 (part)
P. Preston-Morley Collection, DNW Auction 54, 19 June 2002, lot 640.

Capt Stephen Ian Fairbairn (†1968), from Thame, Oxon, 12st 1lb, a King’s Scholar, was at Eton 1909-14 and an editor of the Eton College Chronicle in his last year. He placed third in the final of Lower Boy Sculling, 1 July 1910, stroked the College ‘A’ boat at the Junior House Fours, 31 May 1912 and came second in a quarter-final of the Junior Sculling, July 1912. In 1913 he stroked the defeated Light Blue team in the Trial Eights over the Datchet course, 26 February (medal). He placed second in the final of the School Pulling, 15 May 1913 and won the final of the School Sculling, 18 July 1913. At Henley he stroked the Eton crew in the Ladies’ Cup, being defeated by the First Trinity, Cambridge, boat in both 1913 and 1914, but he was an easy victor in the final of the School Pulling on 13 May 1914. Fairbairn did achieve eventual victory at Henley, being part of the Thames Rowing Club crew which secured the Grand Challenge Cup in 1923. On the outbreak of War Fairbairn joined the Royal Horse Guards and was subsequently wounded in France; he was still on the Reserve of Officers in 1919 and lived at Hamilton Terrace, London NW8. He died in December 1968.
Fairbairn’s victorious 1914 Trial Eights crew included Sir Henry O’Neal de Hane Segrave (1896-1930), who won the French GP in 1923 and set the world land speed record at 152mph on Southport sands in 1926, upping it to over 200mph at Daytona Beach in 1927 and to 231mph in 1929; he died on 13 June 1930 on Lake Windermere when his boat crashed, just after setting a new world water speed record