Bill Beach

Who was Bill Beach?

William "Bill" Beach was a professional Australian sculler. He was unbeaten as World Sculling Champion from 1884 to 1887.

Beach was born in Chertsey, Surrey, England, to Alexander Beach, blacksmith, and his wife Mary, née Gibbons. Beach's family migrated to New South Wales while he was a small child and he lived at Dapto for most of his life, learning to row on Lake Illawarra. He began his sporting career in a wooden tub on the Macquarie Rivulet and ended it as champion sculler of the world.

Beach trained as a blacksmith like his father and seems to have been a fisherman for a time. According to local legend, Beach won his first race as a teenager against a local publican, either for a bottle of brandy or 5s.