Eric Liddell

Eric Liddell is the most famous pupil Eltham College has ever had. He joined the school in 1908 at the age of six. Like all the other boys in the school at the time, Eric was the son of Missionaries - his parents lived and worked in China.

Eric Liddell was an excellent sportsman during his time at Eltham College, and played for both the 1st XV rugby and 1st XI cricket by the age of fifteen, as well as excelling at athletics. He later captained both the rugby and cricket teams and was awarded the Blackheath Cup for all-round sporting excellence.

After he left school he continued to play rugby and represented Scotland seven times. At the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris he won the bronze medal in the 200m and then the gold medal in the 400m, an achievement which forms the basis of the film "Chariots of Fire".

From 1925 to 1943 Eric worked as a missionary in China, as his parents had done. Following the Japanese invasion, he was in an internment camp for two years before dying there in 1945.