Pittwater Life January 2024 Issue

Times Past
Stewart ‘Sam’ Alexander Mackenzie
Famous rower Stewart Mackenzie
was born on 4 April 1937 and
educated at the King’s School Parramatta
where he began the sport.
His mother, Phyllis Mavis Blanche, and
father, Alexander Alan, ran a poultry
farm at Seven Hills until they moved to
Palmgrove Road in 1963. (Stewart was
actually trained and worked as a chicken
sexer during his early rowing carer.)
He was a member of the Bilgola Surf
Club (and possibly Avalon Beach) but
retired from surfing to concentrate on
his sculling.
After completing his schooling in
1954, he rowed out of the Leichhardt
Rowing Club.
Stewart qualified for
the 1956 Olympic Games
in Melbourne as a debut
member of the Australian
Rowing Team, winning
a silver medal in the
Men’s Single Sculls.
He was a complete
sportsman, qualifying for
both the discus and the
shooting teams, but chose
rowing. Also, whilst living
in Florida in the USA, as
a scratch golfer he played
alongside the famous
professional golfer, Lee
Trevino.
A feat that he was most well-known
for was his prowess in the Henley
Royal Regatta, where he won the
Diamond Challenge Sculls six times –
consecutively – from 1957 to 1962 and
won the Silver Goblets in the Double
Sculls.
He avenged his defeat in Melbourne
by the Russian Ivanoff by defeating him
in one of the Diamond Sculls events in
July 1957.
In August 1957, he also won the
LINK: Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton.
COMPLETE SPORTSMAN: Rower extraordinaire Stewart Mackenzie, circa 1950s.
world’s amateur sculling
title at the European
Games held in Duisburg,
West Germany.
When his outstanding
success as a sculler was
brought to the attention
of Warringah Shire Council
by the Avalon Progress Association, in
August that year it decided to send him
a letter of congratulations under Seal of
Council and “to accord him a civic reception
on his return to Australia”.
Unfortunately he never returned to
Australia and after residing in the UK
for the past 30 years Stewart passed
away in October 2020.
Interestingly, another Olympic medallist
Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton occupied the
same house in Palmgrove Road after the
Mackenzies moved up to Bilgola Plateau
sometime around 1972.
Besides winning gold in the 1500-metres
freestyle at the Paris Olympic
Games in 1924, he set five world records
and also won a further three silver and
one bronze medal in his Olympic career.
He lived there with his wife Jessie,
son Murray and daughter Patricia until
he passed away as the result of a heart
attack in December 1975 aged 68 years.
Apparently he was suffering with emphysema
and generally poor health.
*Thanks to Christine Ellis for assistance
with this article.
TIMES PAST is supplied by local historian
and President of the Avalon Beach
Historical Society GEOFF SEARL. Visit
the Society’s showroom in Bowling
Green Lane, Avalon Beach.
Times Past
The Local Voice Since 1991
JANUARY 2024 73