Frank Willan (rower)

Frank Willan (8 February 1846 – 22 March 1931) was an English rower and Militia officer who rowed for Oxford in four winning Boat Race crews and umpired the race between 1889 and 1902. He was also a yachtsman and one of the founders of the Royal Yachting Association, an alderman, a Deputy Lieutenant for Hampshire, an early motorist, and a military historian.

During the First World War, when aged nearly seventy, he drove military lorries on the Western Front in France.

Willan was the only son of John James Willan (1799–1869) and his wife Jane Onslow, who was herself a granddaughter of Colonel George Onslow MP, first cousin of George Onslow, 1st Earl of Onslow. He was educated at Eton College and Exeter College, Oxford. At Eton, he was a 'wet bob' and rowed at stroke.

Willan went up to Oxford as a member of Exeter College. There, he rowed for Oxford in its winning Boat Race crews in four successive years, in 1866, 1867, 1868 and 1869. In 1867 he was also in the winning Oxford Etonian crew in the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta and runner up in the Diamond Challenge Sculls. In the same year, 1867, he gave evidence in a legal dispute over the starting of a sculls race on the Thames. In 1869, he was President of the Oxford University Boat Club.