Wyndham Halswelle - Domestic Athletics

Domestic Athletics

In 1904 he was army champion for 880 yards, and in 1905 he won the Scottish and AAA 440 yard (402 m) titles. In the Athens Intercalated Olympics, he achieved a silver medal in the 400 metres and a bronze in the 800 metres. On his return, in a single afternoon in 1906 at the Scottish championships in Powderhall, he won the 100, 220, 440 and 880 yards races (91, 201, 402, 805 m), a feat that has not been matched since. His season was cut short by a leg injury in 1907, but he came back the following year to set a world record of 31.2 s for 300 yards (274 m) and a British record over 440 yards of 48.4 s that lasted over a quarter of a century until it was eventually broken by Godfrey Rampling. In 1908 he set a Scottish 300 yards record that lasted until 1961 when it was beaten by Menzies Campbell, then a Glasgow University student.