Tom Weil — tireless supporter of Henley’s rowing history

THOMAS Eliot Weil, a rowing historian, collector and philanthropist, passed away aged 75 on Sunday, September 1.

He was an ex-trustee of the River & Rowing Museum in Henley as well as the museum’s largest object donor. He worked tirelessly throughout his life to preserve the rowing heritage of the town.

Born in at the British Embassy clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan, on October 19, 1948, to an American diplomat and his New Zealander wife, Tom spent his childhood moving around the world with his father’s postings, including New Delhi, Tokyo and Seoul.

During his early childhood in India Tom recalled spending summers in Ranikhet in the north during his father’s New Delhi posting.

Writing to fellow historian Tim Koch, he reminisced: “We escaped from New Delhi, where my father worked at the US Embassy from 1953 to 1956, when ceiling fans were inadequate in Delhi’s summer heat, and air conditioning non-existent.

“Ranikhet had no electricity, so our evenings were lit by little gas lanterns that hissed as they burned. No running water, so the paniwallahs (water carriers) would heat bath water in a central facility and carry it to our cabins. Monkeys hurled pine cones at us as the horse handlers led our ponies along the heavily treed hill trails.

“We were quite impressed when the German military attaché, who was also staying at the camp, shot a leopard, particularly since he had only one arm, having lost the other in the war.

“My one memory of Nainital itself was being introduced to golf there by my father, and watching delightedly as my ball, quite inadequately struck by a five-year-old, kept rolling down the manicured hillside, drawn much more by gravity than propelled by my swing (it was a very odd location for a golf course). All very Raj (that was only a few years after independence in 1947) and Kiplingesque.”

Tom’s first interaction with rowing came in 1963 when he attended Henley Royal Regatta as a 14-year-old by which time his father was posted in London.

He then picked up the sport himself while a student at the Phillips Academy, Andover, but was in his own words “never big enough to get to the varsity over the next three years.”

After graduating in 1966, Tom attended Yale University where he joined its lightweight squad under Jim Joy and rowed in the Thames Cup at Henley in 1970. The Yale crew beat Liverpool Victoria in the first round, Garda Siochana in the second but lost their semi to the eventual winners, Leander Club.

Friend and fellow rowing historian Chris Dodd said: “The 1970 trip to Henley also took in a visit to Ireland when the Garda invited Yale oarsmen to race in the Irish national championships at Blessington. Tom won no medal but had a great time. He finished his rowing career that summer with a silver medal in the US national championship elite double sculls.

“Henley also launched Tom’s obsession with collecting all things rowing when he and his crewmate Dave Vogel spent two days exploring antiquarian book shops and galleries in London and bought every rowing book and print they could find.”

After receiving a US Navy commission in 1970 Tom served in a Vietnam deployment, on a destroyer escort based in Pearl Harbor and then, following training in Turkish, was assigned as the admiral’s aid at the military mission in Ankara during the Cyprus crisis.

Tom continued to buld his rowing collection assiduously during his five-year service in the Navy, maintaining touch with dealers in London, New York and Boston. He admitted to spending much of his Vietnam combat pay on rowing prints and books.

He achieved a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1978 and served as energy-group counsel and partner at a law firm in Washington DC and Houston.

Of meeting Tom for the first time Mr Dodd said: “By the time I met Tom, he was an ex-Navy lawyer. I spent a long weekend at the Weil home and, while Tom attended to the demands of his three small sons, I sat on the bed in the guest room for 24 hours surrounded by floor-to-ceiling stacks of rowing prints, photos, books and ephemera.

“If anybody wondered whether there was enough stuff to justify a museum and gallery of rowing, the evidence was here in the woods outside Washington DC. Here was a jolly soul who shared my obsession with the history, culture and humour of the sport, who was a serious and knowledgeable collector who could recount endless stories and who was excited by the prospect of a museum in Henley that was in its wing-and-a-prayer-chat-in-the-pub phase of development.”

After his time working as a lawyer Tom retired to Woodbridge, Connecticut, a town next to New Haven, home of his alma mater Yale.

He served as a a trustee of the National Rowing Foundation and a director of the Yale Crew Association and, together with fellow historian Bill Miller, was keen to find a home for a national rowing museum in the US.

Then, after the River & Rowing Museum opened in Henley in 1998 Tom served as one of its trustees from 2001 to 2020, donating a significant amount of his collection which was at that point, by his own estimation, between 5,000 and 10,000 items.

When Tom had to retire from the board on reaching the age of 70, the museum’s chairman, David Worthington, said of him: “Without the addition of Tom Weil’s extraordinary collection, the museum and most especially the Rowing Gallery would be significantly less comprehensive and a lot less interesting.

“In fact, I’ve often wondered how many holes we would have in our displays, if Tom chose to take his things back? Lots, is the quick answer.

“His generosity is not just limited to objects. As a font of knowledge he has supported the curatorial team for two decades and as a foundation trustee, has provided wise advice, challenging questions and supportive actions in equal measure. He won’t necessarily realise this but every time we speak, he always finishes with the words “What can I do to help?

“The Museum owes Tom a huge debt of gratitude. Put simply, it would not be the same museum without him.”

As well as his contributions to the museum, Tom’s connections with Henley included his life membership at Leander Club, to which he donated one of its oldest trophies which the club won in Liverpool in 1840 and which was acquired by Tom at auction.

He also contributed a chapter on the “Treasures” of the club to its 200th-year anniversary celebration volume, and contributed to a campaign to re-dedicate its Yale Room.

Following Tom’s death, Leander’s flag was flown at half mast.

In his own tribute to Tom Mr Koch recalled meeting him in a bookshop in Henley. He wrote: “Would you like me to sign that for you?’ asked the stranger shyly. It was 2006 and my curiosity about rowing history was in its early stages.

“However, it was clearly advanced enough for me to have gone to Richard Way’s bookshop in Henley to buy a copy of Beauty and the Boats: Art and Artistry in early British Rowing illustrated from the Thomas E Weil Collection — only to discover that the author himself was present, fastidiously cataloguing books in a corner of Diana and Richard’s wonderful little shop.

“I was delighted to find myself talking to an erudite and charming man who was not only an Anglophile — always flattering for a Brit though Tom’s New Zealander mother did mean that he was part Commonwealth subject — but was also the most knowledgeable rowing historian that I had ever met, then or since.

“Tom was, I suspect, just happy to meet someone under 50 who had an interest in rowing heritage. During our sadly few future meetings, Tom’s constant theme was, where is the next generation of rowing historians, who in the future is going to both take over the collecting, preservation and display of aquatic artefacts and also continue research into a much under-researched subject?

“Americans commonly hold military veterans such as Tom in high regard and frequently tell such ex-servicemen and women of their admiration. However, we in the rowing world can also say with equal regard and admiration, Thomas Eliot Weil — thank you for your service.”