Eric Liddell

Eric Henry Liddell ( /ˈlɪdəl/; 16 January 1902 – 21 February 1945) was a Scottish athlete, rugby union international player, and missionary.

Liddell was the winner of the men's 400 metres at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Liddell's Olympic training and racing, and the religious convictions that influenced him, are depicted in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, in which he is portrayed by fellow Scot Ian Charleson.

Early life

Eric Liddell, often called the "Flying Scotsman" after the record breaking locomotive, was born in Tianjin (formerly transliterated as Tientsin) (Chinese 天津) in North China, the second son of the Rev and Mrs James Dunlop Liddell, who were Scottish missionaries with the London Missionary Society. Liddell was born in 1902 and went to school in China until the age of five. At the age of six, he and his brother Robert, eight years old, were enrolled in Eltham College, Mottingham, a boarding school in England for the sons of missionaries. Their parents and sister Jenny returned to China. During the boys' time at Eltham, their parents, sister and new brother Ernest came home on furlough two or three times and were able to be together as a family, mainly living in Edinburgh.

At Eltham, Liddell was an outstanding sportsman, being awarded the Blackheath Cup as the best athlete of his year, playing for the First XI and the First XV by the age of 15, later becoming captain of both the cricket and rugby union teams. His headmaster described him as being "entirely without vanity".

Liddell became well-known for being the fastest runner in Scotland while at Eltham College. Newspapers carried stories of his feats at track meets, and many articles stated that he was a potential Olympic winner,

Liddell was chosen to speak for Glasgow Students' Evangelical Union because he was a strong Christian. The GSEU hoped that he would draw large crowds to hear the Gospel. The GSEU would send out a group of eight to ten men to an area where they would stay with the local population. It was Liddell's job to be the lead speaker and to evangelise the men of Scotland.

University of Edinburgh

In 1921, Liddell joined his brother Robby at the University of Edinburgh to study Pure Science. Athletics and rugby played a large part in his university life. He ran in the 100 yards and 220 yards races for Edinburgh University and played rugby for the University club, from which he gained a place in the backline of a strong Scottish national rugby union team. In 1922 and 1923, he played in seven out of eight Five Nations matches along with A. L. Gracie. In 1923 he won the AAA Championships in athletics in the 100 (setting a British record of 9.7 seconds that would not be broken for 35 years) and 220 yards (21.6 seconds). He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree after the Paris Olympiad in 1924.

Once every four years Edinburgh University holds a parade in Liddell's honour.

Eltham College's sports centre was named "Eric Liddell Sports Centre" in his memory.

Paris Olympics

The Olympics were hosted by the city of Paris. A devout Christian, Liddell refused to run in a heat held on Sunday (the Christian Sabbath) and was forced to withdraw from the 100-metres race, his best event. The schedule had been published several months earlier, and his decision was made well before the Games. Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, though his best time of 49.6 seconds, set in winning the 1924 AAA championship 440 yards^[1], was modest by international standards. When the day of the Olympic 400 metres race came, Liddell went to the starting blocks, where an American Olympic Team masseur slipped a piece of paper into his hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30: "Those who honor me I will honor."

The pipe band of the 51st Highland Brigade played outside the stadium for the hour before he ran. The 400 metres had been considered a middle-distance event in which runners raced round the first bend and coasted through the back leg. Inspired by the biblical message and the pipe music, Liddell raced the whole of the first 200 metres to be well clear of the favoured Americans. With little option but to then treat the race as a complete sprint, he continued to race round the final bend. He was challenged all the way down the home straight but held on to take the win. He broke the existing Olympic and world records with a time of 47.6 seconds.^[2] It was, oddly, ratified as a World record despite its being 0.2 seconds slower than the record for the greater distance of 440 yards.^[3]

A few days earlier Liddell had competed in the 200 metre finals, for which he received the bronze medal behind Americans Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock, beating British rival and teammate Harold Abrahams, who finished in sixth place. This was the second and last race in which these two runners met.

His performance in the 400 metres in Paris stood as a European record for 12 years, until beaten by another British athlete, Godfrey Brown, at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

After the Olympics and graduation from university, Liddell continued to compete. Shortly after the 1924 Olympics, his final leg in the 4 x 400 metres race in a British Empire vs. USA contest helped secure the victory.^[4] A year later, in 1925, at the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association (SAAA) meeting in Hampden Park in Glasgow, he equalled his Scottish championship record of 10.0 seconds in the 100, won the 220 yard contest in 22.2 seconds, won the 440 yard contest in 47.7, and participated in a winning relay team. He was only the fourth athlete to have won all three sprints at the SAAA, achieving this feat in 1924 and 1925.

Because of his birth and death in China, some of that country's Olympic literature lists Liddell as China's first Olympic champion.^[5]

Service in China

Liddell returned to Northern China to serve as a missionary, like his parents, from 1925 to 1943 – first in Tianjin and later in the town of Xiaozhang (Simplified Chinese 肖张镇),^[6] Zaoqiang County, Hengshui, Hebei province. During his time in China as a missionary, Liddell continued to compete sporadically, including wins over members of the 1928 French and Japanese Olympic teams in the 200 and 400 metres at the South Manchurian Railway celebrations in China in 1928 and a victory at the 1930 North China championship.

Liddell's first job as a missionary was as a teacher at an Anglo-Chinese College (grades 1–12) for wealthy Chinese students. It was believed that by teaching the children of the wealthy, they would become influential figures in China and promote Christian values. Liddell used his athletic experience to train boys in a number of different sports. One of his many responsibilities was that of superintendent of the Sunday school at Union Church where his father was pastor. Liddell lived at 38 Chongqing Dao (formerly known as Cambridge Road) in Tianjin, where a plaque commemorates his former residence. He also helped build the Minyuan Stadium in Tianjin. He suggested that it be copied exactly from Chelsea's football ground, where he had competed and was said to be his favourite running venue.

During his first furlough from missionary work in 1932, he was ordained a minister of religion. On his return to China he married Florence Mackenzie of Canadian missionary parentage in Tianjin in 1934. Liddell courted his future wife by taking her for lunch to the famous Kiesling restaurant, which is still open in Tianjin. The couple had three daughters, Patricia, Heather and Maureen, the last of whom he would not live to see. The school where Liddell taught is still in use today. One of his daughters visited Tianjin in 1991 and presented the headmaster of the school with one of the medals that Eric had won for athletics.

In 1941 life in China had become so dangerous because of Japanese aggressiveness that the British government advised British nationals to leave. Florence and the children left for Canada to stay with her family when Liddell accepted a position at a rural mission station in Shaochang, which served the poor. He joined his brother, Rob, who was a doctor there. The station was severely short of help and the missionaries there were exhausted. A constant stream of locals came at all hours for medical treatment. Liddell arrived at the station in time to relieve his brother, who was ill and needing to go on furlough. Liddell suffered many hardships himself at the mission.

As fighting between the Chinese Eighth Route Army and invading Japanese^[7] reached Shaochang, the Japanese took over the mission station and Liddell returned to Tianjin. In 1943, he was interned at the Weihsien Internment Camp (in the modern city of Weifang) with the members of the China Inland Mission, Chefoo (now known as Yantai) School, and many others. Liddell became a leader and organiser at the camp, but food, medicine and other supplies were scarce. There were many cliques in the camp and when some rich businessmen managed to smuggle in some eggs, Liddell shamed them into sharing them. While fellow missionaries formed cliques, moralised and acted selfishly, Liddell busied himself by helping the elderly, teaching at the camp school Bible classes, arranging games and by teaching science to the children, who referred to him as Uncle Eric.^[8]

It was also claimed that one Sunday Liddell refereed a hockey match to stop fighting amongst the players, as he was trusted not to take sides. One of his fellow internees, Norman Cliff, later wrote a book about his experiences in the camp called "The Courtyard of the Happy Way", which detailed the remarkable characters in the camp. Cliff described Liddell as "the finest Christian gentleman it has been my pleasure to meet. In all the time in the camp, I never heard him say a bad word about anybody". The camp was originally a mission school named The Courtyard of the Happy Way (Chinese 樂道院, which could also mean the Campus of Loving Truth).^[9]

Death

In his last letter to his wife, written on the day he died, Liddell wrote of suffering a nervous breakdown due to overwork, but in actuality he was suffering from an inoperable brain tumour; overwork and malnourishment may have hastened his death. He died on 21 February 1945, five months before liberation. He was greatly mourned not only at the Weihsien internment Camp but also in Scotland. A fellow internee, Langdon Gilkey, was later to write, "The entire camp, especially its youth, was stunned for days, so great was the vacuum that Eric's death had left." According to a fellow missionary, Liddell's last words were, "It's complete surrender", in reference to how he had given his life to his God.^[10]

In 2008 Chinese authorities revealed that Liddell had refused an opportunity to leave the camp and instead gave his place to a pregnant woman. Apparently, the Japanese made a deal with the British, with Churchill's approval, for prisoner exchange. This information was released near the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics by the Chinese government and apparently news of this act of sacrifice came as a surprise even to his family members.

Fifty-six years after the 1924 Paris Olympics, Scotsman Allan Wells won the 100 metre sprint at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. When asked after the victory if he had run the race for Harold Abrahams, the last 100 metre Olympic winner from Britain (in 1924), Wells replied, "No, this one was for Eric Liddell."

Eric Liddell was voted in The Scotsman newspaper in an 8 August 2008 poll as the most popular athlete Scotland has ever produced.

Memorial

In 1991, a memorial headstone, made from Isle of Mull granite, was unveiled at the former camp site in Weifang, erected by Edinburgh University. A few simple words taken from the Book of Isaiah 40:31 formed the inscription: "They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary." The city of Weifang, as part of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the internment camp in 2005, commemorated Liddell by laying a wreath at the headstone marking his grave.

Liddell's memorial is at Weifang in Shandong Province, north-east China, about six hours' drive from Beijing. Its rediscovery was largely the result of the determination of Charles Walker, an engineer working in Hong Kong, who felt one of Scotland's great heroes was in danger of being forgotten, and decided to search for the grave. The task wasn't easy. Since Liddell's death, place names had changed, documents lost and witnesses were difficult to find.

As of 2009, Liddell is honoured with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on 22 February. ^[11]

Chariots of Fire

The 1981 film Chariots of Fire chronicles and contrasts the lives and viewpoints of Liddell and Harold Abrahams. One inaccuracy surrounds Liddell's refusal to race in the 100-metre event at the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics. The film portrays Liddell as finding out that one of the heats was to be held on a Sunday as he boards the boat that will take the British Olympic team across the English Channel to Paris. In reality, the schedule and Liddell's decision were known several months in advance, though his refusal to participate remains significant. (Liddell had also been selected to run as a member of the 4⨉100 and 4⨉400 relay teams at the Olympics but also declined these spots as their heats, too, were to be run on a Sunday.)

One scene in the film depicts Liddell falling early in a 440 yard race in a Scotland-France dual meet and making up a 20-yard deficit to win; the actual race was during a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England and Ireland at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. Liddell was knocked to the ground several strides into the race. He hesitated, got up and pursued his opponents, 20 yards ahead. He caught the leaders shortly before the finish line and collapsed after crossing the tape.

Liddell's unorthodox running style as portrayed in the film, with his head back and his mouth wide open, is also said to be accurate. At an athletics championship in Glasgow, a visitor watching the 440 yard final in which Liddell was a long way behind the leaders at the start of the last lap (of a 220 yard track) remarked to a Glasgow native that Liddell would be hard put to win the race. The Glaswegian merely replied, "His head's no' back yet." Liddell then threw his head back and with mouth wide open caught and passed his opponents to win the race.

See also

• List of Scotland rugby union footballers killed in the World Wars
• Protestant missions in China 1807–1953

References

Further reading

Videography

• Chariots of Fire (1981 Feature Film)
• The Story of Eric Liddell (2004 Documentary)
• Eric Liddell: Champion of Conviction (2007 Documentary)
• Torchlighters: The Eric Liddell Story (2007 Animation)

External links

• Eric Liddell The Eric Liddell Centre, Edinburgh
• Biography on the Eltham College website
• Statistics from scrum.com
• Commonwealth War Graves database entry
• Weihsien Paintings – A website devoted to the Japanese camp survivors and their memory
• Photo
• The life and death of Eric Liddell @ Ward's Book of Days
• Eyeblast video of Ken Wales– Short video of film producer Ken Wales talking about new sequel to "Chariots of Fire", 13 September 2008.