William Knapp Thorn

American polo player
The basics

Quick Facts

IntroAmerican polo player
PlacesUnited States of America
wasAthlete Polo player
Work fieldSports
Gender
Male
Birth1848
Death16 November 1910 (aged 62 years)
The details

Biography

Pau-Hunt : Arsenius; Arthur Smyth, baron d'Este; Hubert, comte de Ganay; James Mellor; Prince de Poix; William Knapp Thorn, Edgard Lejeune, G. Brinquant

William Knapp Thorn, Jr. (1848 – November 16, 1910) was an American champion polo player and the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Also, he was a hunter and horse-rider. He was one of the best-known sportsmen in the United States and France.

Biography

He was born in 1848 to Emily Almira Vanderbilt Thorn.

He participated in the 1886 International Polo Cup with teammates Foxhall Parker Keene and Thomas Hitchcock, Sr.

He lived in Pau where he contribute to the development of cars and motorsport in the region. He created the Automobile-club of Bearn which organised the first motor races in the southwest of France in 1899.

This race became the famous Pau Grand Prix which is still popular today.

He died in Pau, France on November 16, 1910.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article on 14 Jun 2020. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.