James Crowden

Who is James Crowden?

James Gee Pascoe Crowden is an English former rower who competed for Great Britain in the 1952 Summer Olympics. He was Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire.

Crowden was born in Tilney All Saints, near Wisbech. He grew up in Peterborough and attended King's School before going on to Bedford School. He had his first victory at Henley Royal Regatta in 1946 as part of the school team which won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup, which that year was presented by the future Queen herself. He then went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1951 he was part of the winning Cambridge boat in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in the year when Oxford sank, and the umpire stopped the race and ordered a rerow the following Monday. He went to the United States to compete against American college teams at Yale and Harvard and won Silver Goblets at Henley partnering Charles Lloyd. Also in 1951, he won gold at the European Championships at Mâcon, in France. He was in the Boat Race again in 1952, when Cambridge lost and he competed in the coxless fours at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Crowden became the Cambridge crew's coach for the next 20 years.