William Henry Neville ("Harry") Amos was born on 6 February 1875, the son of William (an accountant) and Mary Alice (nee Neville) Amos. One of four children, (he had a younger brother and two older sisters) the family lived in Kaiapoi in Canterbury. Harry attended Canterbury College (University) in the late 1890s studying accountancy, then pursuing teaching as a career, firstly at Timaru High School and then at Feilding Technical School (in Manawatu).

He married Thora Charlotte Harris in 1904, with whom he raised a daughter, Thyra. With his wife, he established Banks Commercial College and Wellesley College (private educational institutions) in Wellington, in the early 1920’s.

A champion cyclist in his youth (he broke the New Zealand five-mile record in 1902 and he was the New Zealand amateur cycling champion from 1898 to 1903), Harry was appointed honorary secretary and handicapper of the South Canterbury Centre of the "League of New Zealand Wheelmen" in 1903.

Appointed as Vice President of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association in 1923, Harry went on to manage the 1928 Olympic Games team to Amsterdam, with his wife Thora appointed as chaperone to the team. He was a former chairman and for many years secretary-treasurer of the New Zealand Olympic and British Empire Games Association. As well as managing the New Zealand team that went to Amsterdam in 1928, Harry organised teams for the subsequent Los Angeles (1932), Berlin (1936) and London (1944) Olympic Games.

Harry Amos was the only New Zealander in the Southern Hemisphere, as reported above, to receive the “Olympic Diploma of Merit”, awarded in recognition of his long and outstanding services to amateur sport. He died on 15 November 1958 at the age of 84, at the home of his daughter Thyra, in Surrey, England.

Picture: Harry and Thora Amos.