Jockey who won the Grand National at 23
Liam Treadwell, who died last month aged 34, rode Mon Mome to victory in the 2009 Grand National. Aged 23, he was all but “unknown outside racing circles”, said The Daily Telegraph, and the horse – trained by Venetia Williams – “had been sent off at odds of 100-1, making it the longestpriced winner since Foinavon in 1967”. There was an “eerie silence” when it crossed the finish line, he said. “Nobody had backed him. Everyone was as shocked as me.” In the aftermath, BBC presenter Clare Balding suggested to him that he could use the winnings to fix the gaps in his teeth. The remark drew thousands of complaints – and an offer from a dentist to do the work almost for free. “It must be one of the kindest things she’s ever said – they’re still gleaming,” he said last year.
Liam Treadwell was born in Arundel, West Sussex, where his parents worked for a local trainer. He left school at 16 to become an apprentice jockey with Amanda Perrett, then joined Dandy Nicholls in North Yorkshire, riding 26 winners on the Flat. He moved to Venetia Williams, because he wanted to ride over jumps. At Aintree in 2009, he was only on Mon Mome because her stable jockey had opted to ride a another runner from the yard – which fell at the seventh fence. Treadwell went on to ride more winners for Williams, but that victory was the apogee of his career. “We shared a day that was certainly the best day of my life, and I suspect of his,” she said, after his death.
In 2016, Treadwell suffered a head injury in a race, from which he never fully recovered. He retired from racing in 2018, but then got back in the saddle, and took a job with the Shropshire trainer Alastair Ralph. In total, he’d won more than 300 races. “He never appreciated how good he was,” said fellow jockey Tom Scudamore, “but his record proves it.”
Francis Carnwath spent 27 years at Barings Bank – but will be remembered for his contribution to the arts. Following his early retirement from banking, he had become deputy director of the Tate. Back then, both its British and modern collections were housed in the one building at Millbank – and it was obvious it needed more room. But where to find it, in central London, and at an affordable price?
Carnwath went to look at the disused Bankside Power Station in 1993 – and spotted its potential immediately. “Like most visitors, my first impressions were of the building’s vast size,” he said. But he was also “staggered” by its position, overlooking the Thames. He would later say that finding a home for Tate Modern was his greatest achievement. “As far as I can see, what life is about is you just chug along and every now and then, there are some obvious things that need to be done,” he said. “If you can be the person to help achieve that, it’s very satisfying.”
Francis Carnwath was born into a banking family, and after Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, joined Barings, said The Times. But he’d always had a great love for the arts. He held an array of public appointments. He served, among other things, as a deputy chairman of Shelter; as director of the Greenwich Foundation for the Royal Naval College; and as a trustee of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. A devoted father and grandfather, he had three children, one of whom died of pneumonia, aged six. In 2014, he fell, and suffered a serious head injury; but he continued to enjoy life in “what small ways he could”.