Having served in the Royal Navy during World War II, Ernie Peppiatt resumed his weightlifting career after the hostilities, and won the British middleweight title in 1945. He competed in the 1948 London Olympics, finishing 15th, and the following year won the middleweight gold medal at the European Championships. He also competed in the 1949 World Championships but failed to medal and, at the 1950 British Empire Games, was forced to pull out after two lifts because of a shoulder injury he received while training for the Games. Peppiatt was a member of the Kentish Town Weightlifting Club, one of the leading club’s in Britain at the time, and he eventually became a coach there, and in 1964 was the weightlifting coach to the British Olympic team in Tokyo. His daughter Janet showed promise as a lifter at the age of three, when she lifted 15lb (6.8kg). Peppiatt later emigrated to New Zealand, where he died in 1979.
Great Britain