Julius Beresford

Julius Beresford was the son of a Prussian-born immigrant corn merchant. He was born with the full name Julius Beresford Wiszniewski, but dropped his surname and used Beresford in his early rowing days. He legally changed his name by Deed Poll to Beresford in February 1914.

Beresford won the 1901 sculling championship of the Netherlands, but it was at Henley that he enjoyed a long association. He first rowed there with the Kensington Rowing Club in 1896 and competed there every year from 1902-14, and was back again for the first post-war Regatta in 1919. His final appearance as a competitor was in 1923. In 1909 Beresford assembled a four that won the Thames Rowing Club’s first Stewards’ Challenge Cup since 1894, a trophy they re-gained two years later. Beresford won the Silver Goblets in 1911 with Arthur Cloutte when their combined ages were 83 years, but they still won in 8:15.0, a record time for the final. The following year, the Thames four won the silver medal at the Stockholm Olympics, before Beresford won his fourth Henley title in 1919 when Thames won the Fawley Cup at the Victory Regatta.

After retiring from competitive rowing, Beresford became coach to the Thames crew between 1926-29, and during that time guided them to 10 trophies including two each in the Grand Challenge Cup, Stewards’ Challenge Cup, Thames Cup, Wyfold Cup, and Silver Goblets. These triumphs gave him more satisfaction than his own personal rowing successes. He continued helping young oarsmen on the Thames until very late in life and, for his 80th birthday, had a new sculling boat built for his personal use.

An avid stamp collector, Beresford was the co-founder of the furniture manufacturing company Beresford and Hicks, with his brother-in-law Richard Hicks in 1891. They went on to supply furniture to the Royal Family and in 1958 obtained a Royal Warrant when Julius’ son Jack had joined the company.

Jack went on to become one of Britain’s greatest rowers, and Jack’s brother Eric was also a winner at Henley between 1927-31. To maintain the long family tradition, Jack’s nephew Michael Beresford was also an Olympian.

In the days when both Julius and Jack were both racing, and because newspapers of the day only used initials instead of first names, Julius was referred to as J. Beresford, Sr, while Jack was known as J. Beresford, Jr., purely for identification purposes.