MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands' Olympic Games gold medal athlete who competed in 1908 London Games

Louis Charles Baillon was born in Stanley in 1881; playing in the England hockey team in London Games 1908 won the hockey tournament and received gold medals

The only Falkland Islander to compete in the Olympic Games has entered the online version of the Dictionary of Falklands Biography (DFB).

Louis Charles Baillon was born in Stanley in 1881, one of the fourteen children of Louis Augustine Baillon who had bought nearly 80,000 acres of land in West Falkland in 1866.

The family returned to England in 1888 and settled in the Northampton area. Louis Charles excelled as a sportsman and in 1908 played as full-back in the England hockey team at the Olympics in London. The team won the hockey tournament and received gold medals.

The article, by Dr Stephen Palmer, covers Ballion’s early life, his service in World War I, and later career as a brewer in Northampton. In World War II, two of his sons were killed in action while serving with the RAF.

In 2017, some sporting memorabilia which had belonged to Baillon came up for auction and the purchaser kindly agreed to sell them to the Friends of the Falkland Islands Museum and Jane Cameron National Archives.

FIMA Friends will shortly present them to the Museum in Stanley.

To find the DFB website simply Google ‘Falklands Biographies'. (Penguin News)