C.B. Lawes Challenge Cup

From William Chinnery onwards this trophy has been presented to athletes who have defined the history of the event, in both imperial and metric form. Chinnery won the first of his three titles in 1868 and became the first amateur to run the mile in under 4½ minutes. In 1954 the next barrier of four minutes would be broken in dramatic fashion by another triple Amateur Athletics Association (AAA) champion, Roger Bannister.

The 1500m, or mile race, has traditionally been a strong event for British athletes, and it is a measure of the depth of talent that there are three British Olympic medallists at this distance who did not win this trophy: Norman Hallows bronze medallist at the 1908 London Olympics, Arnold Strode-Jackson Olympic gold medallist in Stockholm 1912, and Philip Noel-Baker silver medallist at the Antwerp Games in 1920. British athletes who have won both this trophy at the AAA Championships and Olympic medals – sometimes in the same year – include Olympic gold medallists Charles Bennett, 1900 Paris; Albert Hill, 1920 Antwerp; and Sebastian Coe, 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles. Olympic silvers have gone to Harold A. Wilson, London 1908; Jerry Cornes, Los Angeles 1932; Steve Cram, Los Angeles 1984; and Peter Elliott, Seoul 1988; with Olympic bronze for H.B. Stallard, Paris 1924 and Steve Ovett, Moscow 1980. Olympic and AAA success has also been achieved by New Zealand athletes Jack Lovelock, Olympic champion in Berlin in 1936, and Rod Dixon bronze in the 1972 Munich Olympics.


The Donor

C.B. Lawes, as he appears on the trophy he donated, was the champion miler at the first Amateur Athletic Club championships, held in 1866. Sir Charles B. Lawes-Wittewronge was a successful runner at university, winning the Varsity competition between the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, first held in 1864. Contemporary press coverage noted both his flamboyant attire and the presence of an assistant with a stopwatch, who called out lap times to Lawes during the race. He and his friend, J.G. Chambers, “the architect of modern athletics” and donor of the trophy for the men’s walk, were both members of the young organising committee for the 1866 championships, along with the Earl of Jersey, donor of 5000m trophy.
Away from athletics, Lawes also competed in rowing, but was best known as a sculptor, working from studios around Chelsea Bridge on pieces such as the Death of Dirce, now in the collections of Tate Britain. His work appeared in exhibitions at the Royal Academy and around the country, and he developed his organisational skills as a committee member for international exhibitions in Paris and Rome and the Coronation Exhibition held just before his death in 1911. In the 1870s Lawes employed the sculptor Richard Belt, an association which was to have unfortunate consequences; the two were involved in a court case over the originality of Belt’s work, as a result of which Lawes was declared bankrupt in 1884, although he continued his work as a sculptor and administrator until his death.

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