Noel DE MILLE

Noël de Mille had been competing in the single sculls for several years before partnering with Ned Pratt in 1931 and training for the doubles. After defeating Bob Richards, a gold medalist in the event at the 1930 British Empire Games, and Theo Dubois, whose rowing prowess would earn him the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete in 1941, at the Olympic trials, de Mille and Pratt were selected to represent Canada at the 1932 Summer Games. There they won their heat over the Italians by a margin of eight seconds, but their times did not match those of the stronger American and German teams and, in the final, the Canadians settled for a bronze medal. De Mille continued to compete through the 1930s, even as he joined Britain’s Royal Air Force and served as a flying officer. He married a descendant of the British King James VI and I and lived for many years in Glasgow, Scotland. There, from 1950 until his retirement, he ran Noel De Mille and Co., a manufacturer of housewares, and patented a new model of home potato peeler. He and Pratt were inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.