Sir Thomas Lipton (A Famous America’s Cup Character)

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Arturo
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Sir Thomas Lipton (A Famous America’s Cup Character)

Post by Arturo » Tue Mar 03, 2015 9:02 pm

Sir Thomas Lipton holds a place in the America's Cup heart as being the most reliably consistent and deftly congenial loser. Five times he challenged for the Cup, five times being defeated. Despite his best laid plans and momentous effort to bring the Cup back to Britain, the tea magnate simply didn't cut the mustard. Nonetheless, he did have a penchant for beautiful boats. His last challenger, Shamrock V, never really stood a chance of winning the race but it did win marks for pure beauty.

Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1st Baronet, KCVO (10 May 1848 – 2 October 1931) was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scotsparentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America's Cup.

Lipton was born in Glasgow on 10 May 1848. His parents, Thomas Lipton senior and Frances Lipton (née Johnstone), were Ulster-Scots from County Fermanagh. The Liptons had been smallholders in Fermanagh for generations but, by the late 1840s, Thomas Lipton's parents had decided to leave Ireland and move to Scotland in search of a better living for themselves and their young family. The Liptons had settled in Glasgow by 1847. Lipton's father would hold a number of occupations throughout the 1840s and 1850s, including working as a labourer and as a printer.

Thomas Lipton was educated at St. Andrew's Parish School close to Glasgow Green between 1853 and 1863. By the early 1860s his parents were the proprietors of a shop at 11 Crown Street in the Gorbals where they sold ham, butter, and eggs. It was with the aim of supplementing his parents' limited income that Thomas Lipton left school at the age of thirteen and found employment as a printer's errand boy, and later as a shirtcutter. He also enrolled at a night school, the Gorbals Youth's School, during this period.

In 1864 Lipton signed up as a cabin boy on a steamer running between Glasgow and Belfast and was captivated by life aboard the ship and the stories told by sailors who had traveled to the United States. After being let go by the steamer company, Lipton quickly used the wages he had saved to purchase passage on a ship bound for the U.S., where he would spend five years working and traveling all over the country. Lipton had a number of jobs during this time: at a tobacco plantation in Virginia, as an accountant and bookkeeper at a rice plantation in South Carolina, as a door-to-door salesman inNew Orleans, a farmhand in New Jersey, and finally as a grocery assistant in New York.

He returned to Glasgow in 1870, initially helping his parents run their small shop in the Gorbals. The following year he opened his first provision shop, Lipton's Market. This enterprise proved to be successful and Lipton soon established a chain of groceries, first across Glasgow, the rest of Scotland, until finally he had stores throughout Britain. While Lipton was expanding his empire, he established the Lipton tea brand, which remains in business as a subsidiary of Unilever.

King Edward VII and King George V both shared their interest in yachting with Lipton and enjoyed his company. Between 1899 and 1930 he challenged the American holders of the America's Cup through the Royal Ulster Yacht Club five times with his yachts called Shamrock through Shamrock V.

See Topics: “Shamrock, Shamrock III, Shamrock IV and Shamrock V”.

His well-publicised efforts to win the cup, which earned him a specially designed cup for "the best of all losers", made his tea famous in the United States. Lipton, a self-made man, was no natural member of the British upper class and the Royal Yacht Squadron only admitted him shortly before his death. Lipton was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1993.

During World War I, Sir Thomas Lipton helped organizations of medical volunteers. He placed his yachts at the disposal of the Red Cross, the Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee of Dr. Elsie Inglis, the Serbian Supporting Fund, etc., for the transport of medical volunteers (doctors and nurses) and medical supplies. In Serbia during the winter of 1914–1915 and the spring of 1915, several British hospital teams were working with Serbian military and civilian doctors and nurses.

He was created a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in March 1901 by King Edward VII.

A portrait of Lipton appeared on the cover of Time magazine on 3 November 1924.

He died at Osidge on 2 October 1931 and bequeathed the majority of his fortune to his native city of Glasgow, including his yachting trophies, which are now on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Sir Thomas Lipton was buried alongside his parents and siblings in Glasgow's Southern Necropolis.

Dominica 1992, S.G.?, Scott: 1530.

Senegal 1999, S.G.?, Scott: 1371.

Source: Wikipedia.
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