John Wrightson

John Wrightson (1840 to 30 November 1916) was a British agriculturalist and the founder of Downton Agricultural College in Wiltshire, which he ran from 1880 until it closed in 1906. He is included in the sport atlas for a single recorded first: according to his English Wikipedia article, in 1890 he reputedly became the first person in Britain to surf, under the guidance of two Hawaiian princes, David Kawananakoa and Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, who were studying at his college. The article places this at Bridlington in September 1890, where Wrightson put on woolly bathers and took to the water. The rest of his career was in agricultural education: he was professor of agriculture at the Royal Agricultural College for fifteen years, introduced grass silage to Britain, and wrote widely read farming textbooks.