Downstream

championship also began (or
ended) at Putney, before the
course was changed to Kew.
In July 1877 the inaugural
winner was Horace
Davenport from the Ilex Club
who swam from Putney to
Westminster in just over one
hour thirteen minutes.
Davenport was ‘the finest
long distance amateur
swimmer that England has
ever seen’, according to The
Badminton Library of 1893;