Albert Martin

Albert Martin was a member of the Nottingham Union Rowing Club and was a reserve in the Great Britain coxed fours crew at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. He was captain of the Nottingham Club for five years and in 1932 was a member of the first ever Union crew to reach a Henley final when they lost to London Rowing Club in the Wyfold Challenge Cup.

Martin was educated at Heanor Grammar School and Nottingham University College. He saw service with the Royal Field Artillery during World War I and served again in the 1939-45 conflict. In the early-1920s, he founded the Nottingham hosiery company of Albert Martin and Co. Ltd., and over the next 50 years they went from being wholesalers to designers and manufacturers of their own products.

Martin served on many local committees, including the Nottingham Chamber of Commerce and served on the Council of the Nottingham and Sheffield Universities. Martin was also the chairman of the Sheffield Regional Hospital Board, and in the 1961 New Year’s Honours list was awarded the CBE for his work with them. In 1966 he was knighted for his work with the National Health Service.

A keen golfer, Martin was at one time captain of Nottingham’s Woolaton Park Golf Club. A Freeman of the City of London, Sir Albert Martin was killed in an accident on the M1 motorway when the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow he was driving collided with a lorry in Derbyshire. His company continued to thrive long after his death.