Bill Beach

Bill Beach
Bill Beach, Champion Sculler of the World 1884-1887
Born	William Beach 6 September 1850 Chertsey, Surrey, England
Died	28 January 1935(1935-01-28) (aged 84) Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia
Resting place	St Luke's Church of England cemetery, Brownsville
Nationality	Australian
Title	World champion sculler
Term	1884 - 1887
Predecessor	Ned Hanlan
Successor	Peter Kemp

William "Bill" Beach (6 September 1850 – 28 January 1935) was a professional Australian sculler. He was unbeaten as World Sculling Champion from 1884 to 1887.

Beach was born in Chertsey, Surrey, England, to Alexander Beach, blacksmith, and his wife Mary, née Gibbons. Beach's family migrated to New South Wales while he was a small child and he lived at Dapto for most of his life, learning to row on Lake Illawarra. He began his sporting career in a wooden tub on the Macquarie Rivulet and ended it as champion sculler of the world.

Beach trained as a blacksmith like his father and seems to have been a fisherman for a time. According to local legend, Beach won his first race as a teenager against a local publican, either for a bottle of brandy or 5s.

Beach was said to have visited the sculler, Edward Trickett, but the date of his first race on Sydney Harbour is uncertain: the Illawarra Mercury, 1 February 1935, claimed 1875-76 but the Town and Country Journal, December 1881, recorded that he won the handicap skiff race for amateurs on Woolloomooloo Bay on the 24th. However, a New Zealand newspaper, the Otago Witness of 9 December 1887, claims his debut as an oarsman was in December 1880. It states that there followed several matches in the next few months.

Among the donors of his £25 prize was the publican J. G. Deeble, who became his sponsor and claimed as his discoverer. In other races he was said to have won £150 with which he built his home at Dapto. On Boxing Day at Pyrmont he was beaten in the allcomers' handicap skiff race by A. Pearce. On 25 February 1882 he won £50 in a match with Solomons, and in October in his first outrigger race he was second for the Punch trophy on the Parramatta River, finishing ahead of Trickett.

In December 1883 he defeated Trickett for the James Henry trophy of £150. On 26 January 1884 he finished ahead of Trickett but, after a protest, lost when the race was rowed again; on 12 April he beat Trickett for £200 a side, the Australian Sculling Championship and the right to race against Ned Hanlan.