Being brought up close to the River Thames, Geoffrey Carr started his rowing career at the age of 17 with the Anglian Boat Club, where he was a cox to their eights and fours. He stayed with Anglian up to the outbreak of World War I. In 1910 he was cox to the Anglian eight that beat Merton College Oxford to win the Thames Challenge Cup at Henley. When the Thames Rowing Club four needed a cox for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Julius Beresford recruited the services of Carr, and they went on to win the silver medal.
In 2012, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Carr’s Olympic achievement, 50 members of his family, including his grandson Geoffrey, who inherited his grandfather’s Olympic medal, hired a boat to sail down the Thames. On board was Carr’s only surviving child, 90-year-old Jane.
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