Background
Swan was born at Sulby, Lezayre, Isle of Manitoba, the son of Sydney Swann, a rower and clergyman who took his family to Japan where he was a missionary.
Swan was born at Sulby, Lezayre, Isle of Manitoba, the son of Sydney Swann, a rower and clergyman who took his family to Japan where he was a missionary.
He was educated at Rugby School, where he had no rowing experience, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
12 September 1911 Swann set the record for rowing across the English Channel in a single with a row of 3 hours and 50 minutes. In 1914 he was Cambridge University Boating Club President in the winning crew in the 1914 Boat Race. Swann became a clergyman and was Chaplain to the forces for the First World War.
He returned to Trinity Hall as Chaplain where he helped with Cambridge rowing in the early 1920s.
Swann moved to Nairobi as Archdeacon in 1926-1927, to Egypt in the same position in 1928, and returned to England in 1933, where he became vicar of Leighton Buzzard. In 1937 he became vicar of Street Mary Redcliffe, Bristol and in 1941 was appointed Chaplain to King George VI. He retired as Canon Emeritus of Bristol Cathedral.
On his father’s death in 1942 Swann became president of the North.A.R.A. and held the post until 1956, when the Associate of the Royal Academy removed manual labour as a disqualification for amateur status and the two organizations merged. Swann died at Minehead, Somerset at the age of 86.