Douglas Hamilton McLean (18 March 1863 – 5 February 1901) was a British rower who rowed in the Boat Race five times and won Silver Goblets at Henley Royal Regatta. He was also a

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played one match for

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

in 1896. McLean was born in Sydney, the son of John Donald McLean, colonial treasurer of Queensland, Australia.Sussex Battle War Memorial
/ref> He went to England where was educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and made his first appearance at Henley in the Eton eight winning the Ladies' Challenge Plate in 1882. He went on to New College, Oxford where he rowed in the

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

crew in the Boat Race five times between 1883 and 1887, winning the 1883 and 1885 races. He won the University Pairs for New College in 1885 and also Silver Goblets at Henley with his brother, Hector McLean. In 1886 the McLean brothers were beaten in the final of the Silver Goblets by

Stanley Muttlebury Stanley Duff Muttlebury (29 April 1866 – 3 May 1933) was an English rower notable in the annals of rowing (sport), rowing and the Oxford and Cambridge The Boat Race, Boat Race. Parentage Muttlebury was born 29 April 1866 in London, England, ...

and Fraser Churchill. McLean was Australia in December 1886 when he played a match for Geelong Cricket ClubDouglas McLean
at Cricket Archive and then in India at the start of 1887, but returned in time to take part in his fifth boat race. During the race McLean's oar broke. Oxford were behind at Barnes Railway Bridge, but Cambridge moved into rougher water too far over to the Surrey bank and Oxford were expecting to push through when the disaster struck. Guy Nickalls, then in his first Boat Race, recorded "Then, 'Ducker' McLean broke his oar off short at the button. With the station in our favour and him out of the boat we could have won even then, but 'Ducker' funked the oncoming penny steamers and, instead of jumping overboard as he should have done, we had to lug his now useless body along, to lose the finish." At Henley the McLeans were again runners up in Silver Goblets to Muttlebury and Charles Theodore Barclay. McLean's brother Hector died at the beginning of 1888 and Douglas started as a rowing coach. He coached the Oxford crews which went on to win over a five-year period. Otherwise he lived in

. On 16 June 1888 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the North Somerset Yeomanry, he was promoted

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

on 22 October 1892, and captain on 4 October 1893. In the 1896 cricket season, he made a single

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

appearance as wicket-keeper for Somerset against a Cambridge University team in which W. G. Grace, Jr. opened the batting. From the tailend, McLean scored 9 not out in the first innings, and 4 runs in the second innings. He was also "a fair shot, a very painstaking billiard-player, and a dignified person, who was equally imperturbable whether sitting as a Justice of the Peace or watching a close boat race". In 1898 McLean collaborated with William Grenfell in authoring ''Rowing and Punting'', the fourth and final volume for The Suffolk Sporting Series on Sport. The work was commissioned from Bertram Fletcher Robinson and edited by Henry Howard, 18th Earl of Suffolk. On 28 March 1900 McLean joined the 69th Sussex Company Imperial Yeomanry with the rank of lieutenant in army, and took part in the Second Anglo-Boer War. He was promoted to captain in the army on 16 August 1900, and later served under the military governor of Pretoria. He died of enteric fever in Johannesburg at the age of 37. He is commemorated on the Boer War memorial in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Battle, East Sussex, and on the Eton College memorial, in Lapton's Chapel within Eton College Chapel.

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External links

The Rowers of Vanity Fair/McLean D H – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks
at en.wikibooks.org {{DEFAULTSORT:McLean, Douglas 1863 births 1901 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of New College, Oxford English male rowers English cricketers Somerset cricketers Imperial Yeomanry officers British Army personnel killed in the Second Boer War Oxford University Boat Club rowers North Somerset Yeomanry officers Cricketers from Sydney Colony of New South Wales people

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