Education
London moved to London as a child and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where he joined the Polytechnic Harriers and was coached by Sam Mussabini.
London moved to London as a child and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where he joined the Polytechnic Harriers and was coached by Sam Mussabini.
He was elected captain of the sports club in October 1922. He was an early adopter of starting blocks rather than digging footholds in the cinder tracks. London competed for Great Britain in the 1928 Summer Olympics held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
He was the first to use starting blocks at the Olympic Games.
He was later coached by Albert Hill. He was also a leading British high jumper in this period.
His athletic career was curtailed by a leg injury in 1930. He joined a 4×100 metre relay for England against Germany in 1931, but was not selected for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Los Angeles
After he retired from athletics, he became an entertainer, playing piano in the original cast of the Noël Coward"s musical Cavalcade at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1931.
He also appeared Will Hay"s Gainsborough Pictures comedy Old Bones of the River in 1938. He was later divorced and remarried in 1938. He later worked as a porter at Street Pancras Hospital, and died suddenly from a subarachnoid haemorrhage.