Edward Aston

1884 – date of death uncertain · Yeadon, Yorkshire, England

Edward Aston was a British professional weightlifter and strongman who took the title of Britain's Strongest Man from Thomas Inch in 1911 and, by the usual account, held it until he retired undefeated in 1934. He is remembered today chiefly for his grip strength and for his training courses.

Origins

Aston was born in 1884 in the village of Yeadon, near Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Little reliable detail survives about his early life and how he came to lifting.

The work

Aston competed as a professional, in the challenge-match culture of the British halls, where titles were contested for stakes before a paying audience. When Inch outgrew the middleweight class early in 1910 he relinquished his middleweight title to Aston, who on 4 August 1910 met the newly arrived Maxick at the Granville Music Hall in Fulham for £100 and a silver trophy; Maxick strained his shoulder during the contest and withdrew. A rematch at the Holborn Empire in December 1910 was abandoned unfinished. In June 1911 Aston beat Inch for the heavyweight championship of Great Britain and the title of Britain's Strongest Man.

He also wrote and sold training material, including Modern Weight Lifting and How to Gain Strength and a grip course, How to Develop a Powerful Grip.

Notable feats

Figures commonly credited to Aston, mostly from later strength-history writing rather than contemporary contest records, include:

• The first Englishman to raise 300 lb (136 kg) overhead with one hand.
• A one-arm snatch of 180 lb (82 kg) and a one-arm clean to the shoulder of 250 lb (113 kg).
• A lift of 496 lb (225 kg) on a 2¼ in thick bar with an overhand grip.

Method

Aston's own courses put heavy emphasis on the hands and forearms, and on lifting thick-handled bars and awkward objects, alongside the standard one- and two-hand lifts of the British professional programme.

Legacy

Aston's long tenure as Britain's Strongest Man, and his matches with Inch and Maxick, place him at the centre of the British professional lifting scene between the Edwardian period and the 1930s. His grip course is still reprinted and quoted.

Disputed and unresolved

Aston's figures come largely from promotional and later popular accounts and should be treated with caution. Sources differ on the details of his title matches, and the date and place of his death are not well established in the sources consulted; the grip course is commonly dated 1946, so he was evidently alive after the Second World War.