Olympic Medal Winner
Just over 100 years ago at the Paris Olympics, New Zealander Arthur Porritt won a bronze medal in the 100m dash.
Arthur Espie Porritt was born in 1900 in Wanganui. His mother died in 1914 and his father Ernest headed off to WWI. Arthur became a keen athlete and like his father he studied Medicine. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and continued his studies at Magdalen College, Oxford 1924-26.
Porritt represented New Zealand at the Paris summer Olympics in 1924. Harold Abrahams (Great Britain) took the gold in the 100m race in which Porritt earnt his bronze. Every year until Abrahams’ death in 1978, Abrahams and Porritt with their wives would dine together at 7pm on the 7th of July (the time of the 1924 race).
Porritt’s participation in the 100m race is immortalised in the film ‘Chariots of Fire’. His name was changed to ‘Tom Watson’ as he was too modest to be named and it was many years later that he was prepared to watch the film.
Porritt was captain of the Olympic Team at the 1928 Games in Amsterdam and managed the team at the Games in Berlin in 1936. He held three Olympic Records.
In 1940, Porritt was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He served in France until the evacuation of Dunkirk and then in Egypt. He later landed in Normandy on D-Day. He ended his military career in 1956 with the honorary rank of Colonel in the Territorial Army.
Porritt was King’s surgeon to George VI from 1946 to 1952 and then was Serjeant-Surgeon to Queen Elizabeth II until 1967. At this time he returned to New Zealand to be appointed as 11th Governor General, and the first to be born in New Zealand. At the end of his term in 1972 he returned to England. He died in London at the age of 93 in 1994. His wife died in 1998.
Porritt is interred in the Soldiers Section at Karori Cemetery with his father.
Honours:
1943 Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire
1945 Promoted to Commander (CBE)
1950 Appointed Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (KCMG)
1963 Created a Baronet of Hampstead
1967 Promoted to Knight Grand Cross (GCVO)
1973 Elevated to Life Peer and created Baron Porritt of Wanganui and Hampstead
Plot: Soldiers/Y/3/41
Lord Porritt features in the WCC self guided tour at Karori Cemetery called Warriors Walk. A copy of the tour guide is on this link:
https://wellington.govt.nz/-/media/maps/files/warriorswalk.pdf?la=en&hash=7078DCD39F044CB2E7283F302809F6772F1C3716
By Julia Kennedy
1924 Olympics, photo source: Getty
Porritt plot