Self made millionaire Sir Thomas Lipton , who made his fortune from tea and groceries , five times unsuccessfully challenged for the America's Cup yacht racing trophy , between 1899 to 1930 , each time with a boat named Shamrock . One of them is shown in this Bavarian printed postcard by renowned marine artist and author Seppings Wright , posted with much love from Ethel , at Droxford , Hampshire, to Miss Hannah Bartlett ,"Abbottsford" (a private school), Mosman's Bay, Sydney , New South Wales, on March 27 , 1907.
The postal cancellation is for the Droxford town of Bishop's Waltham , where there had been grim workhouses for the poor dating from the 1700s right up to the 20th century .
In a moment of fame for Droxford, it is claimed that in June 1944 a most important secret meeting was held in a carriage at the railway station at which the date for the D-Day invasion of Normandy is said to have been discussed . Gathered there were British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden , Ernest Bevan , US General Dwight Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle of France , General Smuts of South Africa and the Prime Ministers of Canada and New Zealand , Mackenzie King and Peter Fraser .
Lipton's parents, Ulster Scots, had been forced to flee Ireland during the potato famine of 1845 and he worked as a printers' boy , a cabin boy on a steamer between Glasgow and Belfast , sailed to the USA, worked on a tobacco plantation in Virginia and served as a grocery assistant in New York .
Even though Sir Thomas shared his love of sailing with two British kings, Edward Vll and George V , he was not admitted into the exclusive Royal Yacht Squadron until just before he died ; he was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1993.
His America's Cup challenges were in the name of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club . The always interesting Cairns retro , collectables and memorabilia shop - Crackerbox Palace - the source of this postcard.
