William Fletcher (rower)
William Alfred Littledale Fletcher, DSO (25 Aug 1869 - 14 February 1919) was an English oarsman and coach.
William Fletcher "Flea" (Vanity Fair caricatures)
Fletcher was born at Holly Bank, Green Lane, Wavertree, near Liverpool, the eldest son of Alfred Fletcher, a Director of the London and North-Western Railway. He was educated at Cheam School and Eton. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford where he rowed to win the Ladies' Challenge Plate and the Thames Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 1889.[1] In 1890 he stroked the Oxford Eight in the Boat Race to end a Cambridge run of four victories. He rowed in the 1891, 1892 and 1893 Boat Races. With Vivian Nickalls he won the Silver Goblets at Henley in 1892 and 1893[2] and both the Pairs and the Fours at Oxford. He rowed in winning Leander Club crews at Henley. He was a member of the Oxford Varsity Water Polo team and was on the Committee of Vincent's Club.
Having access to considerable private wealth, Fletcher became a rowing coach. He had learned a technique at Oxford comprising a combination of swing and slide, together with a lightning entry, and he taught it to the Cambridge crews in 1898 and 1899, which led to the creation of a magnificent Cambridge crew in 1900. He missed coaching for the 1901 Boat Race as he took part in the Second Anglo-Boer War where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in November 1900.[3] On returning from South Africa he coached both the Oxford varsity crew and that of Christ Church, his old college, to great success and acclaim, reaching the peak of his fame as a coach. He afterwards coached many Oxford and House crews.[1]
Fletcher was also a big game hunter and explorer. He went hunting and exploring in Siberia, Kenya, and Tibet. In the First World War, Fletcher served as Captain of the 2/6th Rifle Battalion of the Liverpool Regiment. His troops suffered the second mustard gas attack of the war, at Armentières in July 1917, which wiped out two companies and incapacitated 440 men, including Fletcher himself. He was released from hospital two months later and resumed command in the rank of Lt. Colonel, but never fully recovered and gave it up in July 1918. After the war, when he was acting chairman of the Henley Regatta, he put forward a motion to hold a scaled-down Henley Regatta in the following summer, which was carried unanimously. However, he never saw it to fruition since he died in the 1918 flu pandemic from broncho-pneumonia which caught hold in his gas-weakened lungs.[1]