Trinity Hall Olympians

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Written by:

Sophie Stewart

Posted:

18 Jul 2024

To mark the beginning of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, we’ve delved into the archival collections of Trinity Hall to find out more about the College’s own Olympians.

Trinity Hall boasts an impressive record at the modern Olympic Games: 27 medals (14 gold, 6 silver and 7 bronze) have been won by 17 athletes. If Trinity Hall represented a country in the 1900 Olympics, the College would have placed 7^th overall in the Olympic medal table. This blog post will focus on the stories of four of these Olympians.

William Faulder Smith Olympic Games Menu

William Faulder Smith

The College Archives hold a small piece of Olympic history: the papers and memorabilia of field hockey player William Faulder Smith, who won Gold at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp. The collection includes a commemoration medal for the 1908 London Games, a British Olympic Team passenger ticket to Antwerp, correspondence from the Hockey Association, and a photograph album which documents Smith’s time at Trinity Hall between 1905 and 1908.

Another interesting item in the collection is a dinner menu from the Antwerp Olympic Games (pictured first left). Beef, consommé and salad were on offer to athletes in 1920, as well as fruit and patisseries for dessert. Smith’s personal copy of the menu is signed by members of the 1920 British Olympic Hockey team.

Smith – who was known by his friends as ‘Jerry’ – led a student life abundant in social and athletic activities. He was a member of the Trinity Hall Cricket Club, Hockey Club and Football Club, as well as president of the Trinity Hall Magpies, a debating club. His photograph album provides an insight into Edwardian student life at Trinity Hall which, for Smith, was certainly not lacking in dinner parties.

In later life William Faulder Smith took over the family business, and became director of the textile manufacturers, Stapley & Smith, and the insurance brokers, Smith & Burns.

John Wodehouse, 3rd Earl of Kimberely

John Wodehouse was an Olympic Polo player who won gold at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics and silver at the 1908 London Olympics. He was a distant cousin of P.G Wodehouse and was quite likely the inspiration for Bertie Wooster in ‘Jeeves and Wooster’, although this connection was never stated explicitly by P.G Wodehouse.

Wodehouse matriculated in 1902 and studied Law, but he left without taking a degree. However, in other areas of university life he demonstrated considerable dedication, such as his attendance at the University Pitt Club where he was a committed member, serving as auditor in 1904 to 1905.

Wodehouse played two out of the five times in which Polo was contested at the Olympic Games. Polo was last played at the Olympics in 1936 and is no longer considered an official Olympic sport alongside tug-of-war and lacrosse.

Wodehouse was awarded the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Italian War Cross in the First World War. He became a Liberal MP at the age of 22 and worked for a time as assistant private secretary to Winston Churchill. He died during an air raid in London in 1941.

Sidney ‘Cygnet’ Swann

Sidney Swann was an Olympic rower and clergyman who won gold at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and silver at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

Athletic prowess was part of the Swann family tradition. His father, Rev. Sidney Swann (matriculated 1881) was described by Henry Bond as ‘the greatest all-round athlete of whom there is any memory in the Hall’. Rev. Swann was an eccentric character with a penchant for new challenges: he broke the record for rowing across the Channel (3 hr 50 min), cycled around Syria, built several flying machines, cycled from Land’s End to John o’ Groats in record time, and served as a missionary in Japan.

His son, Sidney – who was known as ‘Cygnet’– matriculated in 1909 and studied History as an undergraduate. He won the first of his four Blues in 1911 and served as president of the Trinity Hall Boat Club, the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Trinity Hall Owls Club. In 1920, he returned to Trinity Hall as College Chaplain and coach of the Boat Club. Swann later became Archdeacon in Nairobi, Chaplain to King George VI, and Principal of the RAF Chaplain School at Magdalene College Cambridge during the Second World War.

Billy Fiske

William Mead Lindsley Fiske III, known as Billy Fiske, was a two-time Olympic gold medal winner in Bobsleigh. At the age of 16, he led the bobsleigh team for the USA and won gold at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St Moritz. Later the same year, he started his undergraduate degree at Trinity Hall where he read Economics and History. As a student he served as secretary of the Trinity Hall Golf Club and became a well-known figure in Cambridge for driving to the golf course at high speed in his 4 ½ litre open Bentley.

In 1932, Billy Fiske carried the flag for the United States at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid where he won gold in bobsleigh for a second time. In September 1939 he joined the RAF, by passing himself off as a Canadian citizen, and was assigned to a Hurricane fighter squadron. He was killed in an aerial combat at the age of 29 and was the first American in British Service to lose his life in action in the Second World War.