Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Swimming - The Eric Seward collection image 1
Swimming - The Eric Seward collection image 2
Lot 75

Swimming - The Eric Seward collection

25 July 2012, 14:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £3,250 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Sporting Memorabilia specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

Swimming - The Eric Seward collection

Comprising an England team cap from the opening ceremony in white wool with Union flag, Seward's navy blue cotton swimming suit with England Team badge, a copy of the Official 1908 Olympic Games report, with photograph of Seaward in England strip and a copy of "Wings over the Desert" by Desmond Seward, relating Eric Seward's service in Palestine in WW1 (4)

Footnotes

William Eric Louis Seward (1891-1975)
Born in Melbourne, the son of a wine merchant, he spent his youth in France and Ireland. An active sportsman, Seward was chosen, at the age of 16, to represent England in the 100 metres backstroke, where he was eliminated in the heats. A severe motor accident in 1912 injured his lungs and terminated his Olympic career, but in 1915 after rejection by the Army and inspired by his French flying cousins, he learned to fly and was accepted by the Royal Flying Corps, on the condition he served in a hot climate. By 1916 he was serving in Palestine. Engaged on combat and surveying duties, he utilised his Olympic skills to successfully swim six miles after ditching in the sea, and then walking thirty miles in the nude to safety.

1908 was the first time the backstroke was represented in the Games. Twenty-one swimmers competed, from eleven nations, with England fielding a team of seven, one of whom, Herbert Haresnape, won the Bronze medal.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.

CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.