BIO

Orroroo sportsman Walter Addison played solid football for Norwood as a half-back flanker in 1896, but he did not achieve great fame until 11 years later when he became the first Australian rifleman to win the King's Prize at Bisley. 

A son of the Hon. A. R. Addison MLC, Walter was a  prominent athlete in the north where he won several Sheffield handicaps and was a valuable backman on the football field.

He was a big man for those times,  188cm and 88.5kg,  and by going to Norwood he blazed a trail followed by  later Orroroo players Harold Kirkwood and Lachie Bowman. 

On 6 June he saw the introduction of a new rule - the ball having to be kicked  at least five yards for a mark - and was among the  best players as Port Adelaide beat Norwood 7.9 to 5.6. He played before 8,000 people when Norwood  upset Port 2.10 to 0.7 on Queen's Accession Day, 22 June. 

At Bisley, England, in 1907, Lieutenant Addison, 33, made international headlines when he took the King's Prize in an exciting shoot-off. He also won the South Australian King's Prize in 1903, 1905 and 1912 ( his father having won the equivalent Queen's Prize in 1883).

Born at Middleton 1 October 1874, he included cricket and tennis in his sporting repertoire and, in an obituary after his death at Orroroo on 18 July 1951, he was depicted as an early Victor Richardson.

P Robins May 2017