The theft of an 18-carat gold trophy from Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, kept secret until just last week, has made news headlines, but the Lipton Cup already had an extraordinary story long before a thief made away with it.
In December 1930, weeks after his fifth and final attempt at winning the greatest prize in yacht racing, Sir Thomas Lipton was presented with an honour unique in the history of sport.
It was not the America’s Cup, the silver winner’s trophy he had been chasing for three decades.
Instead, it was something far more meaningful – a respectful and affectionate tribute, paid for by public subscription, to a Scot who had won the hearts of the American public as the “world’s most cheerful loser”.
Yachting is often thought of as a rich man’s pastime, and by the start of the 20th Century, Lipton was very rich indeed – but he wasn’t born that way.
The young Tommy Lipton grew up in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, the son of Irish immigrants, often pushing a wheelbarrow from the docks to restock his father’s shop.
Lipton had many shops, including one in Dumbarton High Street, which was famous principally for its “good” butter, fresh eggs, and bacon and sausages from Ireland.
At the age of 15, he set off with just a few pounds in his pocket to America, where a job in a huge New York department store opened his eyes to a new way of shopping.
When he returned to Glasgow in 1871, he had a vision for how to make his fortune.
The 18-carat gold trophy vanished from Glasgow’s Riverside Museum last year
Within a few years Lipton’s grocery stores were spreading across Britain. And in the 1890s, he identified the mass market potential of tea, purchasing his own plantations in Sri Lanka.
As his fortune grew, he gained a reputation for philanthropy and global fame as a sportsman, particularly sailing.
Between 1899 and 1930, Lipton made five unsuccessful challenges for the America’s Cup, representing Great Britain against the US for the most prestigious trophy in yachting.
While his boats were crewed by elite professionals, Lipton was the owner and public face of the challenge, with his personal charm and gracious attitude in defeat making him a sporting hero on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lipton’s racing yachts, built at the Denny shipyard by local tradesmen in Dumbarton, were all called Shamrock, each one pushing the boundaries of yacht design.
He came closest to victory with his fourth attempt in 1920, winning two races with the best result by a British challenger in decades, but the final score was 3-2.
Shamrock IV won the first race after the sail of the American yacht Resolute was badly damaged, and Lipton played down the victory as a fluke.
It was typical of the sportsmanship that endeared him to the public
For his final attempt in the 1930 series – the first involving the sleek and iconic J-class racing yachts – Shamrock V had a hollow spruce mast to reduce weight.
The masts from the yachts were erected in Dumbarton and remained here long into the last century – at Levengrove Park, The Flagpole in Brucehill Road/Cardross Road and the grounds of St Patrick’s Church in Strathleven Place. They were looked after by Willie McCallum, a local man who was one of the last qualified riggers on Clydeside and who lived locally in Dumbarton.
Many of these families will, in their homes, continue to have a souvenir of the Shamrock yachts because Sir Thomas Lipton, a philanthropic and generous person that he was, presented all the tradesmen with a small gold coloured coin decorated with a shamrock.
The Americans always seemed one step ahead. The US defender of the trophy, Enterprise, used technology from the aeronautical industry and had an even lighter mast made of aluminium.
A large section of the American public seemed to be rooting for the Scotsman rather than their own countrymen, but that “auld mug” as Lipton called the America’s Cup was to elude him once again.
At the finish, as the crew of Enterprise celebrated a decisive 4-0 victory, Lipton was seen smiling as he watched, again endearing him to Americans for his spirit of competition but grace in defeat.
He described the America’s Cup as the most “elusive piece of metal in all the world” but said the thirty years he spent chasing it brought him some of the happiest hours of his life and “splendid friends”.
Lipton was by now 82, and his American supporters were determined that the good-humoured pursuit of his great sporting ambition should not go unrecognised.
The Hollywood actor and newspaper columnist Will Rogers and the mayor of New York organised a public appeal to raise money for an alternative trophy for the man whom Rogers had often described affectionately as the “world’s best loser”.
Thousands of Americans contributed. Donors included future US president Franklin D Roosevelt and miners from Utah who supplied 25kg of silver, which was used by Tiffany’s to construct the trophy’s base.
The two-handled cup itself was made of solid gold, decorated with shamrocks with the inscription “To the Gamest Loser in the World of Sport”.
Laurence Brady, director of the Sir Thomas Lipton Foundation, says the generosity was all the more remarkable given that it was at the height of the Great Depression.
“People lined the streets applauding him as he made his way from his hotel to the presentation ceremony at New York City Hall,” he said.
“It was a gift from ordinary Americans to a man whose sense of humour and sportsmanship they admired.”
The many letters sent in by contributors were turned into a bound volume presented to Lipton along with the spectacular trophy.
The mayor Jimmy Walker joked that he was “possibly the world’s worst yacht builder but absolutely the world’s most cheerful loser”.
Roosevelt wrote: “Sir Thomas and his good sportsmanship are a lesson to every American.”
Lipton was so overcome by emotion that he was unable to finish his speech, and a friend had to step in to deliver his words of thanks.
Sir Thomas Lipton died a year later. He bequeathed the bulk of his fortune “to benefit the poor of Glasgow”, while his many sporting trophies were also donated to the city of his birth.
The fate of the Lipton Cup is currently unknown. Its monetary value is estimated at £490,000.
As a symbol of sportsmanship, many would argue it is priceless.