Edward "Ned" Hanlan (12 July 1855 – 4 January 1908) was a Canadian professional sculler, hotelier, and alderman from Toronto, Ontario.

The Hanlan family originally lived at the east end of Toronto Island, but a severe storm in 1865 pushed their house into the harbour.

Young Hanlan used to row several kilometres across the harbour to go to and from George Street public school, Toronto every day.

He developed speed and strength by rowing his boat with freshly-caught fish to sell at market before other fishermen arrived to compete.

[3][4] By the time Hanlan was a teenager, he was competing in rowing events and he gained his first important success at the age of eighteen, when he became amateur champion of Toronto Bay.

[5] After further success in North America he decided to test his mettle against Europe and travelled to England in 1879 where, on 16 June 1879 he defeated the English champion, W. Elliott of Blyth, rowing the course from the Mansion House in Newcastle upon Tyne to the Scotswood Bridge on the River Tyne in the record time of 21 minutes 1 second.

Unlike his English professional rivals, he used the slide simultaneously with the swing, kept his body well back, and held his arms straight long past the perpendicular before bending them, added strength being given by the skilful use of his great leg power.

On 15 November 1880 he raced him on the River Thames's historic Putney to Mortlake course and, with 100,000 spectators lining the banks, won easily.

He was so in command that in a good humoured way he made great sport of his opponent: The young champion, in order to relieve the monotony of the proceedings, had lain himself down flat on his back.

[8] News of Hanlan's success, spread by telegraph and newspaper, touched off a rare moment of communion among English-speaking Canadians.

His victory also enriched "hundreds" of Ontarians "from Judges to peanut vendors" (Toronto Globe) who had backed him with cabled wagers.

The following year, (1883) after a bout with typhoid which had led to reports of his death, he turned back challenges in the United States from James Kennedy, an American, and Wallace Ross.

He took full advantage of the sliding seat (eventually patented by his coach George Warin in 1882[10]), not only to obtain greater reach but to drive with the large muscles of the legs in a coordinated, fluid motion so that the power of his whole body was marshalled into every stroke.

Hanlan, who was only 5 feet 8 3/4 inches tall, weighed a mere 150 pounds in most of his races, yet his powerful stroke enabled him to beat larger, stronger men.

When racing the arrogant Trickett he chatted with spectators and blew them kisses, stopped and waited, faked a collapse, and rowed in zigzags while the Australian laboured in his wake.

Hanlan's friends put the blame for the loss on a second bout with typhoid, the debilitating effects of almost eight months of foreign travel, and a near collision during the race with a chartered steamer, but the muscular blacksmith was an exceptional opponent.

(After a brief scrape with the law – he escaped arrest for bootlegging outside his father's hotel in 1876 by rowing out to a cross-lake ferry, only to return in glory following his victory in Philadelphia – he managed to avoid the scandals which plagued his rivals.)

His confident victories against the best rowers from the United States and Britain seemed to confirm the wisdom of the attempt to build a new northern nation, and the vitality of its rising cities and towns.

[11] Following his career as an athlete, Hanlan became a hotelier like his father, and eventually became involved in municipal politics as an alderman of Toronto.

In 1926, a larger-than-life bronze statue of a mustachioed, muscular, shirtless Hanlan, shown clad in his rowing trunks, was unveiled on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition.