Raymond Watson, life vice-president of Kendal Amateur Swimming Club, reveals the history behind one of the club’s oldest trophy

THE Westmorland Gazette recently reported that Queen Katherine School was putting together a project about three Kendal soldiers who lost their lives in the first World War, one of whom was Walter Dixon.

Readers may be interested to know that the memory of Walter Dixon is kept alive to this day by way of a Perpetual Trophy held by Kendal Amateur Swimming Club and is swum for annually at one of the club's galas.

The W. Dixon Memorial Cup is the oldest trophy in the club’s collection and bears the inscription ‘Cumberland and Westmorland Swimming Challenge Cup - Penrith Swimming Club, 1890’.

The cup was presented for competition by Mr H. Riley of Penrith (value: seven Guineas) as a challenge trophy open to clubs in Cumberland and Westmorland.

It was first won by a team of five swimmers from Kendal ASC in 1891 and finally became the property of the club after members won it in 1897 for two years in succession.

The cup was then allocated to a new scratch race, swum over 10 lengths of the pool (200 yards) and entitled the ‘Championship of Kendal’.

Following the first World War the trophy was inscribed ‘Presented to Mrs Dixon by the Members of the Kendal Amateur Swimming Club as a token of respect and remembrance of her son Walter, for many years an active member and winner of the cup on nine successive occasions, June 1920’.

Walter Dixon, better known as ‘Togo’, also held the club record for 200 yards freestyle at the time of his death in France on July 3, 1916 during the war aged 26. He was also well known as a talented football player.

His mother, Mrs Mary Dixon, was the proprietor of a café in Kendal’s Market Place and a great supporter of the club.

The first mention of the Dixon family’s connection with the club came in 1897 when two polo teams, following the match ‘partook of supper at Mrs Dixon's, Market Place’.

Following the cessation of the Second World War (during which the club’s activities were suspended for the duration of hostilities) the cup was returned to the club by Miss Amy Dixon to be used as a Challenge Cup for competition by ‘Boys U/15yrs of age. over 60yds Freestyle’.

The trophy was reallocated to the Boys U/15yrs 100m freestyle championship on the club transferring to the new pool at the Lakes Leisure Centre in 1980.

The trophy has since been reallocated to the Men’s 200m Freestyle Championship and is swum for annually at one of the club's galas.