Born in Dublin, he made his first stage appearance in London in 1691 as Nincompoop in Thomas D'Urfey's Love for Money.

He was associated with Colley Cibber and others in the management of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and Drury Lane, and he continued to play comedy parts at the former until his retirement in 1713.

The winner's prize is a traditional watermen's orange coat with a silver badge added to the sleeve, displaying the white horse of the House of Hanover and Brunswick, with the word "Liberty".

The race had to be rowed annually on August first on the River Thames, by six young watermen who were not to have exceeded the time of their apprenticeship by twelve months.

This deplorable decision to go with the flow obviously marks the start of the subsequent sustained decline in the British national character".