The Oxford crew for the 2015 Oxford – Cambridge Veterans’ Race.

Tim Koch writes:

Perhaps some of those preparing to take part in the twentieth Oxford – Cambridge Veterans’ Boat Race on Friday, 10 April would have had second thoughts about participating if they had read the warning in that day’s copy of the Independent newspaper:

Today could be the UK’s warmest day of the year so far as temperatures reach 22C but those heading outside are being warned of high pollution and dust from the Sahara…… The low air quality has sparked public health warnings for older people to avoid exercising outside.

Luckily, these veterans (or ‘masters’ as they should be both correctly and appropriately called) were unlikely to be felled by what the increasingly ridiculous Daily Express called ‘blood rain from the Sahara’. Most had rowed to a very high level in the past and most were still sculling or rowing on a regular basis. One uniquely qualified participant was the Cambridge ‘three’ man, former Australian rugby international, David Dix. He only rowed for his college while at university but he did win a Rugby Blue. He was clearly delighted to pull on a Cambridge rowing top, claiming that the sport was ‘his first love’.

The Cambridge crew from bow: Tom Middleton, Paul Wright, David Dix, Steffen Buschbacher, Stephen Fowler, Matthew Parish, Sebastian Schulte, Bernd Heidicker, Sarah Smart.

Cambridge did have what appeared to be several small advantages; their average age was the race minimum of 42 as compared to Oxford’s 47, their average weight of 92kg was 1kg more than the opposition’s average and their crew members included four former Olympians while the Oxonians had two. However, with the Light Blue stern pair consisting of Bernd Heidicker and Sebastian Schulte, both from Germany’s World Championship winning eight of 2006, and the Dark Blue stern pair formed by Olympic medalists Barney Williams (Silver, 2004) at stroke and Jonny Searle (Gold, 1992) at seven, nothing was certain.

In the Cambridge Alumni’s Crabtree Boathouse at Putney, Steve Fowler (left) and Matt Parish (right) contemplate a trophy from some time between 1987 and 1998 when the University Boat Race was sponsored by Beefeater Gin.

In the pre-race briefing, umpire Sarah Winckless (centre) instructs coxes Zoe de Toledo (left) and Sarah Smart (right).

Perhaps more in deference more to their training commitments than their years, the Veterans’ Boat Race is not run over the full course but is raced on the Putney – Hammersmith stretch. With good conditions, umpire Winckless set the crews off from just above Hammersmith Bridge. However, within 30 strokes Oxford were four seats up and had increased this to eight up by Harrods. Soon there was clear water and the Dark Blues passed the Mile Post five seconds ahead. The gap widened but Cambridge never gave up and at the finish they had decreased Oxford’s lead to the official verdict of two-and-three-quarter lengths.

‘Where are they?’ The race approaches Putney Embankment.

The finish.

Afterwards, Oxford’s ‘seven’ man, Jonny Searle, said:

We knew that we were going to have a good row but we did not know how fast (Cambridge) were going to be. It was a case of seeing if our best was good enough to beat their best, and today it was.  

Oxford, the winning crew, left to right: Hugh Pelham, Barney Williams, Toby Ayer, Dan Johnson, Jonny Searle, Richard Shirley, Nick Holland, Zoe de Toledo, Chris Heathcote.

The score now stands at 13 – 7 in favour of Cambridge. While the event is still the most informal and relaxed of the numerous Oxford – Cambridge rowing contests, it is perhaps slowly getting a little more serious – certainly kit from long past sponsors ‘Ladbrokes’ is no longer in evidence. On the subject of change, an obvious question this year is, how long is it before there is an Oxford – Cambridge Veteran Women’s Race?

HTBS’s Louis Petrin writes from Australia:

World War I was a time when many fine men and women lost their lives. It was a time of personal loss for family and friends, devastating nations and having an enormous impact on the sport of rowing with many of its finest being lost to the war.

Recently, on 29 March 2015, at the Australian National Rowing Championships there was a Commemorative Ceremony to pay tribute to the South Australian rower, Tom Whyte, who died on 25 April 1915 at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, Turkey, one hundred years ago.

In Australia, the 25 of April is our Remembrance or Memorial Day, called ANZAC Day.

It was on that fateful day that thousands of brave young men went ashore on a foreign beach in a far and distant land. Soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) faced a formidable task. They were sent to seize the Gallipoli Peninsula to force the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war, and to establish an alternative supply line with the Russian allies in the Dardanelles which connected the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Ret’d), Governor of New South Wales and Mrs Hurley laid a wreath during the Commemorative Ceremony. Wreaths were also laid by Captain Charles Huxtable, Royal Australian Navy, President of the Australian Defence Rowing Association, and para-rowing World Champion and former Australian Army Sergeant, Gavin Bellis.

The ceremony was quite moving and the first time held at the national rowing championships in Australia. The day was chosen because the Men’s Eight row for the King’s Cup, which was award at the 1919 Peace Regatta at Henley.

Private Thomas Anderson Whyte
Tom Whyte was born in Unley, South Australia on 19 February 1886. He went to school at St Peters Anglican College in Adelaide. Little is known of his family, except that he had one brother.

At the age of 22, Tom was working a wholesale grocery business which was dissolved in 1908. By then he was a successful lacrosse player, playing a number of interstate matches for South Australia between 1908 and 1912.

However, it was as a rower that he was best known, beginning quietly with the Adelaide’s Mercantile Rowing Club in 1903 before developing several years later into a particularly successful oarsman. He represented South Australia in the Men’s Inter-state Eight-Oared Championship, as the King’s Cup was then known, rowing in the 6 seat in 1907 and stroking the crew in 1908 and 1909.

Interstate 8, 1908. R. Wigg (bow), C.A. Hamilton (2), A.E. Luxmore (3), ? (4), Doyle (5), Madigan, C.T. (6), A.R. Fearley (7), T. Whyte (stroke), V. Smith (Cox), A.J. Grayson (Coach right back), W.H.G. Blain (left back). State Library of South Australia – SRG 32/5/125.

Whyte’s rowing achievements are summarised in the following review:

Observer (Adelaide) – Saturday 8 May 1915, page 39.

He was a popular member of Mannum Rowing Club and during his last rowing season he joined the Adelaide Rowing Club.

Whyte enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Morphettville within weeks of the outbreak of war in 1914 on 19 August at the age of 28 years.

He was posted to the 10th Battalion with many of his mates from school and the Adelaide Rowing Club. They embarked from Adelaide’s Outer Harbour on board the HMAT A11 Ascanius on 20 October 1914. After docking in Freemantle, they steamed west for Egypt for further training before being sent to Gallipoli.

During breaks in training he rowed with his friends and toured Cairo as seen in this picture of Whyte and a fellow member of the Adelaide Rowing Club, Lance Rhodes, sitting on the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Nine members of the 10th Battalion. All except two of these men were students at St Peters Anglican College in Adelaide, and five of them died during the First World War. Pte Thomas Anderson Whyte is in the front row on the left.

On 24 April 1915, aboard a transport ship bound for Gallipoli, Tom Whyte put pencil to paper. Facing his first glimpse of action in a few hours’ time, he wrote a profoundly raw letter to his fiancée, Eileen Wallace Champion, lest he fell in battle the next day. His words reveal the heartfelt fears of a soldier facing an uncertain future:

My Dear Sweetheart, I thought of writing this in case I went under suddenly. Not that at present I have any thought of not seeing you again but in case of accidents.

Tom hoped that the letter would never be sent, “May this letter never be necessary. But the thought that hurts worst of all is of you and your sorrow.” But at the moment of writing, Tom found solace in the thought that the future would be a happy one for Eileen. “Just think of me as non-existent in spirit, blotted out completely,” he wrote. “It would soften the last thoughts if I knew you would be really happy again… Goodbye my love, may you get all the happiness you deserve, that will be my last wish.”

It was planned that the 10th Battalion would be among the first formations to land on Gallipoli in the early hours of the 25 of April 1915.

At 3.30 am, 36 rowing boats in groups of three, each group being towed by a small steamboat, left the battleships Prince of Wales, London and Queen and headed towards the coast. In the boats were six companies (a company contained about a hundred men), about 1,200 soldiers from the 9th, 10th and 11th Battalions of the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade. These men were to be the first ashore at what is now known as Anzac Cove (Turkish: Anzak Koyu), a small cove on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. The cove is 600 metres (2,000 ft.) long, bounded by the headlands of Arıburnu to the north and Little Arıburnu, known as Hell Spit, to the south. Following the landing at Anzac Cove, the beach became the main base for the Australian and New Zealand troops for the eight months of the Gallipoli campaign.

On the morning of the Landing on Gallipoli, the 10th Battalion had been divided into two parts – the first would row ashore just before dawn in the first wave of soldiers to land, and the second would land just after daybreak. Private Tom Whyte had volunteered to row one of the boats ashore in the second wave.

Drawing by Signaller Ellis Silas – The Landing.

His friend, Arthur Blackburn VC, wrote a letter to Tom’s fiancée, Eileen on June 24, some months after the Gallipoli landing, about Tom’s fate that day which was subsequently published in the Adelaide Register. Blackburn describes the scene of Tom’s final moments,

You have no doubt read in the papers an account of our landing, and have seen that after daylight the dangers of landing were increased considerably. The men off the transports had partly to be towed, and partly to be rowed ashore amidst a hail of shrapnel and bullets that was simply indescribable. Now, the most dangerous position of the lot was that of the men who were rowing, as they of course could take no shelter. They could not even crouch down in the boat, but were compelled to sit up and row. The dangers of such a task were so apparent that officers hesitated to order men to expose themselves to the work of rowing. Tom immediately grasped the situation, and, as everyone knew he would, volunteered his services as a rower, as the boat crept in towards the shore the fire became hotter and hotter. The men towing had a terrible time, but they stuck to it in a way which was absolutely magnificent. Just as the boat touched the shore Tom slipped over on to the bottom of the boat, and it was then discovered that he was badly hit.…

Tom’s courageous nature was confirmed by reports from the men he had rowed ashore: “no one was more cheerful than he. He was joking and laughing all the way to the shore, and our battalion has lost one of its best soldiers.”

Tom had been shot through the pelvis. He was taken to the Hospital Ship HMAT Gascon for immediate treatment. Tom Whyte, the champion rower, died that evening aboard on the way to Alexandria.

Blackburn wrote, “the poor fellow was killed before he had fired a single shot, but there is no doubt that it was largely due to the courage and endurance of Tom and his fellow-rowers in all the boats that everyone was landed with the minimum of loss”.

Sitting beside Tom as he lay dying was Sister Katherine Lawrence Porter, Tom’s last nurse. Sister Porter – ‘Kitty’, as she was known – was also engaged to be married, and felt something of the heartache the death of this young man would cause. She wrote some months later on 26 January 1916 to comfort the devastated Eileen,

I remember Private Tom Whyte very well. The poor man came on the Gascon during the morning. He had an abdominal wound and was taken to the operation room almost at once and everything possible was done for him… the only thing he was worried over was some package being delivered to his friend… I feel certain that there must have been some message for you in it… it was knowing that he was engaged made me stay on duty a little longer to be what comfort I could to him. It was a terrible day for us all and I saw so much that was awful that day.

Sister Porter’s letter had offered something beyond value to Eileen – the knowledge and closure of knowing the fate of her sweetheart on the battlefield. In a chaotic war, many were never to know the last moments of their loved ones.

Trinkets of Tom Whyte donated to the Australian War Memorial by the family of Eileen Wallace Champion.

Private Thomas Anderson Whyte was buried at sea between Gallipoli and Alexandria. He was 29 years old.

Whyte was posthumously awarded the following Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

His name appears on panel 61 on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial, along with more than 60,000 others from the First World War.

Whyte’s commemoration details are also recorded at The Lone Pine Memorial (Panel 33), Gallipoli, Turkey.

We will always remember all those who went to war, whether they were rowers, labourers or doctors.

Lest We Forget.

(An occasional column about affordable rowing memorabilia)

Greg Denieffe writes:

Collectaholics, the British TV show exploring the weird and wonderful world of some of Britain’s passionate and obsessive collectors was recently back on BBC2 for a second series and in a perverse sort of way it confirmed that most of us ‘collectors’ are normal. But as Mark Hill, one of the presenters, writes on his website “every collector, or anyone who knows one, will know what can happen when their obsession with their collection goes one step too far”.

This column will be about ‘rowing collectables’ – a few from my own collection and lots I would like to own.

Procession of Boats on the Wear at Durham to Celebrate the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. Painting by Edward Hastings and in the collection of Durham University.

According to their website, Durham Regatta has its origins in the annual procession of boats, organised by the Sheriff of County Durham and the Rt. Hon. William Lloyd Wharton, in June 1815 to celebrate the ‘famous victory’ at Waterloo. The event included the ‘firing of cannon and a substantial supper with a plentiful supply of strong ale for the Waterloo men’.

In this first edition of Crewcial Collectables, I will look at a couple of publications and a medalette from my own collection and some interesting prizes from the early Inter-Collegiate races within Durham University.

A History of Durham Rowing (1922) by A. A. (Angus Alexander) MacFarlane-Grieve (editor) gives a detailed account of rowing in Durham, Durham University and its colleges and includes substantial chapters on ‘Durham School Rowing’ by R. H. J. Poole and ‘The Durham Amateur Rowing Club’ by J. G. Burrell. A good copy will cost you between £80 and £100.

Some of the information about the collectables below comes from this publication (shown in italics). For those in possession of a copy I can fill in a gap in the record of the winners of The Challenge Pairs which is left blank in the records section.

In 2008, the River and Rowing Museum hosted an exhibition of Durham rowing memorabilia to celebrate One hundred & seventy five years of Durham University rowing. It is one of their few exhibitions to have been accompanied by a detailed catalogue (Exhibition Notes by Gerald Blake) which in my opinion is itself highly collectable. There may be a few copies still available priced at £10.

Both the above publications feature photographs of the famous Durham Regatta Medal presented between 1839 and c.1870 with the latter also featuring the Wharton Cup Medal featuring the shields of the Durham Amateur Rowing Club, Durham University and Durham School. You will find two nice photographs of an 1843 Durham Regatta medal won by Edward Clasper on the Friends of Rowing History website.

Recently, an 18ct gold Wharton Cup medal was offered for sale on eBay for £450. It had a hanging pin, unlike the medal featured in the RRM publication. Overpriced? I think so.

Compare this with the next two items that sold for a combined price of £400 in February 2014. Firstly they are much rarer and we know the name of the recipient. In addition, they add something to the rich history recorded by MacFarlane-Grieve.

The first item is the original rudder which was part of the prize of The Challenge Pairs which date from 1879 when a Challenge Pair of silver oars and rudder were presented by the Rev. V. K. Cooper, to be competed for annually in foy-pairs over the short course. In 1913 the Master of University College, the Rev. H Gee, D.D. and Mrs. Gee, presented a Challenge Cup for this race. In 1905 Dr. W. D. Lowe presented a silver rudder to replace the original one which had been lost. The trophies are not for inter-Collegiate competition, and pairs may be made up from more than one college.

Recorded in appendix IV of A History of Durham Rowing are the winners of The Challenge Pairs from 1879 to 1921 with the exception of the coxswain in 1881. The box for the rudder is embossed with the names of the winning coxswains for 1879 to 1883 with the 1881 winner recorded as H. Straker who was also victorious in 1880. The other names recorded on the box agree with the book and so perhaps a small but important contribution to the history of Durham rowing can be claimed by HTBS.

The original rudder for The Challenge Pairs and a winners medal for The Senior Inter-Collegiate Fours of 1884.

Boxes – for the rudder (L) 7.6 cm x 6.3 cm x 4.5 cm and for medal (R).

The second item is an 1884 medal for The Senior Inter-Collegiate Fours won by J. E. Brownbill of University College. The obverse has the crest of Durham University and the University motto – ‘Fundamenta Eius Super Montibus Sanctis’ which translates as ‘Her Foundations are set upon the Holy Hills’. The reverse is engraved with the names of the winning crew and the medal is complete with a swivel suspender and purple ribbon.

The history of this race commences with the foundation of D.U.B.C. in 1877, and it has been rowed annually ever since with the exception of the years 1885 and 1886, when it was abolished in favour of Trial Fours and during the war. After the Regatta quarrel it was revived as an event in the University Regatta, and the Senate of the University presented a Challenge Cup for annual competition in the year 1877.

The race is open to a Senior Four from each College and is rowed in fine fours over the long course.

The rudder and reverse of the 1884 medal (note the misspelling of Brownbill).

It may appear that J. E. Brownbill is the culprit responsible for the original rudder going astray but there may be a perfectly good reason why it had to be replaced in 1905. The prizes may have been stolen or the quarrel referred to above may have seen the prizes left with the previous winners longer than customary and therefore forgotten. In any event, Brownbill was a successful coxswain who coxed the Durham University Boat Club’s first four in 1883 and 1884 albeit without success at the Durham Regatta.

Durham Regatta medalette (24 mm).

From the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries, Durham was a County Palatine – an autonomous territory ruled by prince-bishops with the authority to raise their own armies and mint their own coins. (Rowing Blazers [2014] Jack Carlson)

One of the pleasures of collecting is the scope it gives to research your purchases and learn from them. As soon as I saw the Durham Regatta medalette (pictured above) for sale, I knew that it would be a challenge and having resolved to make a modest bid out of curiosity, I found that there was at least two others like-minded individuals but I’m glad to say that I was successful and can share this interesting find with HTBS readers and hope that someone can help identify what it was awarded for.

My initial thoughts were that it was a copper farthing, perhaps used by Durham Regatta in their beer tent or even as a reward to professional rowers to use in-and-around Durham. Of course, I have no evidence to support my theory; maybe I’ll never know but I live in hope.

One that got away!

 This little enamelled lapel badge (26 mm) sold recently for £21. No details were given by the seller but the quality of the enamelling suggests it dates from the 1930s. I decided to go for the medalette and leave the badge to someone else.

If you are interested in Durham rowing you will find an online collection of A. A. Macfarlane Grieve’s photo album in the Durham University Library Special Collections Catalogue.

Until the next time … regret the things you buy not the things you don’t.

James Lister Cuthbertson, ‘Cuthy’, a photograph taken in 1897.

Göran R Buckhorn writes:

As April is actually ‘Poetry Month’, HTBS should at least post one rowing poem this month. I have picked a poet who probably is unknown to most of you HTBS readers, despite the fact that he has written several poems on the sport of rowing, James Lister Cuthbertson.

“Dark Blue v. Light Blue”

(From Grammar School Verses; 1879)

Beside the green-fringed willow-woven banks
Where Yarra’s waters flow,
The ‘Alexandra’ and ‘Melburnia’ floated,
Waiting the word to go.
Upon the north the dark blue muster strongly,
Eager to back their crew,
And on the southern shore all those have rallied
Who wear the lighter blue.
Idly the mitred flags are trailing downwards,
Slow glides the dark stream down;
Through the thick screen of leaves we see but dimly
Spires of the distant town.
Pleasant for us ashore, but in the boats there
All hearts are beating fast
This is their maiden race, and much they wish that
At least the start were past.

Now then, are you ready?
Geelong, there, keep steady.
Come up a bit, Melbourne – yes, that will do – ”Row !”
Hullo! what a cheering
As onwards Careering,
Half mad with excitement, beside them we go;
By Jove, they are gaining,
The Melbourne are straining
Their stretchers and backs to a pretty quick time.
Why, look there to nor’ward,
They’ve got her head forward –
They’ll lead us – they’ll lead us a length or more soon!
What, gaining? – not they!
Yes, that is the way,
Yes, stick to if, Fairbairn*, and bring up ‘the silk.’
Now, now we are near them,
Straight, mind, ‘Rad,’ you steer them,
Well rowed, boys! Remember, if once you are clear,
You’ve got the right side, and you’ve nothing to fear.

Now Brander’s is past,
And, leading at last,
We have them in hand by a length in the bend.
The race is a gift,
Now, lift her, lads, lift,
And see if you can’t give them ‘bellows to mend.’
Not so fast, not so fast,
There’s a buoy to be past,
And our Cox. means to clear it, if clear it he can.
The current is strong,
He’d surely be wrong
Not to save us our distance – the wise little man!

Alas! for ‘our Wonder,’
‘Two’s oar, with a crash,
Is ‘on it and under,’ –
A beautiful smash.
Our boat has lost way,
Her head is astray,
And the Dark blue are on us, and level, and then
Have a length by the time we are going again.
“The race is all over – the Light blue are hit,
“They can’t make the distance.” – But just wait a bit,
Now, boys, for an effort – now make the boat spin –
Go on, ‘Alexandra,’ through thick and thro’ thin!

Ah, watch the long sweep
Of the oars, as they keep
Perfect time, and the leap
As she lifts to the turn;
See the swing and the swirl
Through the stream as they hurl,
Through the waters that curl
Far away from her stern.
See, inch by inch, nearing
The straight, we are clearing
Their craft, and the cheering
Is loud at the bend.
As every nerve bracing,
We come up outpacing
The crew who are racing
It out to the end.

A clear length ahead! Now stick to your work.
Their stroke is a ‘pluck’d’ un,’ he never will shirk:
He’ll come to the front, and be in at the fun,
And tho’ their boat’s collared, the race isn’t won.

Yes! see, he has caught her,
And on he has brought her,
Right into your water,
Right up to your bow.
Now, hold to it, light blue,
For home is in sight; you
Must show them the right blue –
Row never, or now!
All right – it is done,
And the victory won.
Just hark to the cheering that comes from the shores,
To welcome the workers in each of the fours,
As breathless, exhausted, they rest on their oars.

Well rowed, gallant dark blue; you couldn’t diminish
Our yard to the good at the desperate finish,
But you showed you were staunch to your Grammar School blue –
So we’ll cheer for you too,
When we welcome our crew,
When we cheer for ‘our boys,’ for the fastest of boats,
For the flag at the head of the river that floats.

*Probably Tom Fairbairn, one of Steve Fairbairn’s brothers.

James Lister Cuthbertson was born on 8 May 1851 in Glasgow and studied at Trinity College, Glenalmond, Scotland. Cuthbertson had set out to join the Indian civil service and was admitted to Merton College, Oxford, where he, however, failed a necessary examination and had to give up his plans for a career in India.

Geelong Grammar School, 1862.

Instead, in 1874, Cuthbertson left for Australia where his father, William Gilmour Cuthbertson, had become a manager of the Bank of South Australia in Adelaide. The following year, James Cuthbertson joined the Geelong Church of England Grammar School (Geelong Grammar School) as classical master. As he had rowed with some success at Merton College, he was assigned to be in charge of the school’s rowing programme, which had begun the year before. The first Captain of Boats of the rowing club was Charles Fairbairn, Steve Fairbairn’s older brother. Cuthbertson, affectionately called ‘Cuthy’ by the school boys, also founded the school publication, School Quarterly, which he filled with rowing poems and verses. During Steve Fairbairn’s last two years at the school, he helped Cuthy edit the publication. In the famous rowing coach autobiography, Fairbairn of Jesus (1931), he mentions his old teacher fondly as the school master ‘who taught us esprit de corps’.

In 1879, Geelong Grammar School published Cuthy’s pamphlet Grammar School Verses. In 1882, he left Australia and returned to Oxford to continue his studies, graduating with a B.A. in 1885. Cuthy then returned to Australia and Geelong Grammar School. In 1893, the slim volume Barwon Ballads by ‘C’ was published in Melbourne. Despite being devoted to the school and to the education of the boys, Cuthy was an unhappy man; he struggled with his homosexuality and frequently took to the bottle, so that the boys had to be on ‘Cuthy Duty’, fishing out their school master from the gutter in the evenings and helping him to his rooms.

John Bracebridge Wilson, headmaster of Geelong Grammar School, and the school boys seemed to have shielded Cuthy from the outer world, and when Wilson died in October 1895, Cuthy was made interim headmaster. However, when the new headmaster arrived to the school, he did not approve of Cuthy’s alcoholism and sometimes erratic behaviour, whereupon Cuthy left the school in December 1896 to join his mother in England. A year later, in December 1897, he returned to Australia to residence in Geelong. He worked as a journalist, and spent the summers fishing in the Glenelg estuary on the South Australian border, but he was still in contact with Geelong Grammar School, sending contributions to the School Quarterly.

While staying at a friend’s house at Mount Gambier, South Australia, Cuthy took an overdose of veronal and died on 18 January 1910. Two years after his death, a memorial edition of his poems, Barwon Ballads and School Verses was edited by E. T. Williams, who held his classical mastership, and published by members of the Geelong Grammar School.

Barwon Rowing Club’s Maiden Eight 1914.

Greg Denieffe writes:

Louis Petrin’s splendid article Rowing to War – Lest we Forget published on HTBS on ANZAC Day focused on an individual, Tom Whyte, a member of Mercantile Rowing Club in Adelaide. I always find it easier to relate to the horror of war when this is the case.

Another Australian rowing club that lost members in the Great War was Barwon Rowing Club, South Geelong, Victoria. In 1914, their maiden eight won at Ballarat Regatta. The following year all of them signed up for the war effort. Most of them did not return.

Their sacrifice is commemorated on an honour roll at the Barwon Rowing Club and former club president, Karen O’Connor has been researching their fascinating story for years.

Not surprisingly, Barwon Rowing Club’s war memorial has featured before on HTBS in Tim Koch’s The Oarsmen’s Cenotaphs.

The memorial is a broken column, symbolising a young life cut short. The inscription reads:

Erected by members of Barwon Rowing Club in honour of their fellow members who paid the supreme sacrifice in the cause of honour, justice and freedom in the Great War 1914-1918.

Last week, a short report by Margaret Burin of ABC Ballarat featured a video about the Barwon club’s loss. It features O’Connor paying tribute to the five members of that maiden eight that did not return – watch it here.

Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott chose to refer to one of the five, Lieut. John Charles Paul when giving his message of remembrance to the Geelong Advertiser.

By remembering one man, we remember them all.

Prince William at Eton c.1992. Perhaps this picture captures the moment when he decided to be (in Eton speak) a ‘dry’ and not a ‘wet’ bob i.e. to make cricket and not rowing his summer game.

Tim Koch writes from London:

About 360,000 babies were born around the world today, on 2 May, but perhaps the one that generated the most interest was the child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, better known as Prince William and the former Kate Middleton. While the birth was announced by e-mail and on the royal Twitter and Instagram accounts, there was also the somewhat restrained traditional paper announcement placed on an easel outside Buckingham Palace:

Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a daughter at 08.34 am. Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well.

The newborn immediately became fourth in the line of succession to the British throne, pushing her uncle, Prince Harry, down to fifth in line. While interest seemed to centre on the baby’s sex, weight and name, HTBS readers are probably more concerned to know if she will be a rower or a sculler. Sadly, historical evidence seems to suggest neither is likely.

The then Kate Middleton showing a little more enthusiasm for sitting in a boat than her future husband pictured above. Paddling, of course, is not rowing.

As the top picture shows, Prince William, like all boys at Eton school, was given the chance to try rowing and sculling but it seems that he much preferred soccer and rugby. The same applies to his brother, Prince Harry, and there appear to be very few members of the British Royal Family who have taken an active interest in the sport. It is true that they will attend rowing events as part of their Royal duties but I am sure that there is a more genuine enthusiasm from the older ones for sporting occasions involving horses and from the younger ones for contests featuring popular ball games. There was a rumour that ‘Kate and Wills’ had been seen sculling together in a double, but I think that this picture is a fake.

Princess Margaret talking to her then fiancé, Antony Armstrong-Jones, aboard the Cambridge launch during the 1960 Oxford – Cambridge Boat Race. Oxford won.

Probably the member of the Royal Family who had the most impressive involvement in rowing was a commoner who married into the House of Windsor. In 1960, photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, later Lord Snowden, married the Queen’s only sister, Princess Margaret. They were both rather strong-willed and open-minded people and they had a somewhat tempestuous relationship but for a time they were Britain’s most glamorous couple. In the 1950s, the Princess had been at the centre of the so-called ‘Margaret Set’, a group of aristocrats who seemed to spend their lives in the pursuit of pleasure. She married Armstrong-Jones just as the 1960s started to swing and her Guardian obituary noted:

The Snowdons seemed the ideal cipher for an age that was promoting style above status but had not yet completely kicked deference. In the early days of their marriage Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon broke new ground socially, making friendships, or at least acquaintance, with all the usual 60s names, Nureyev, Peter Sellers, Vidal Sassoon, Mary Quant, and the more flaky, including John Bindon, a minor actor of East End sensitivities famed most for an interesting trick involving beer glasses with handles and a private part of his anatomy.

Years before mixing with this eclectic crowd, Armstrong-Jones had been to Eton and then to Jesus College, Cambridge where he coxed the Light Blues to a 3 1/2 length victory in the 1950 Boat Race. Perhaps he needed even greater skills than are normally required to navigate the Putney to Mortlake course as, in his book The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race (1983), Chris Dodd noted that the Cambridge boat was nicknamed the ‘Banham Bombshell’ and that it ‘didn’t hold in the water all that well’ and that Cambridge ‘were frightened of going up Beverley Brook’ (the creek that runs at 90° to the course at the end of Putney Embankment). However, Armstrong-Jones not only successfully steered the boat but, according to a recent biography by Anne de Courcy, he designed a new rudder for it as well.

Antony (‘Tony’) Armstrong-Jones, later the First Earl of Snowden, in his Jesus College rowing cap.

Armstrong-Jones clearly maintained his interest in rowing and he and Princess Margaret were in the Cambridge launch for the 1960 Boat Race (evidenced both by the picture above and by British Pathe) and he also followed the 1965 Race (though Pathe only filmed his nephew, Prince Charles, in the BBC launch)  In 1964, the Snowdens and the Queen Mother visited Henley for its 125th year and to witness the Harvard crew of 1914 rowing over. Again, the wonderful Pathe newsreel was on hand to capture all of this for posterity.

I have found a couple of pictorial references to Princess Margaret’s great-grandfather, Edward VII, and rowing which are interesting enough but I do not think that they can be taken as an indication of him possessing any real interest in the sport.

Queen Victoria and family, 1850. The nine year old Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, is in the skiff adorned with the Prince of Wales’s feathers. How often he used it is open to speculation.

‘A Rowing Type’ by F.H. Manby (1880). This caricature of the increasingly portulent forty-year-old Edward was presumably some kind of humorous or political reference. I can find no evidence that he engaged in any sporting activity beyond hunting, shooting, fishing and keeping mistresses.

In 1883, the Illustrated London News showed Edward VII’s eldest son enjoying rowing whilst a student at his father’s old Cambridge college, Trinity. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, was first in line of succession to the British throne but he died before this father and so it was his younger brother who eventually became King, taking the title George V (and also marrying his late brother’s fiancée). The Prince’s Wikipedia entry notes that Albert Victor ‘….showed little interest in the intellectual atmosphere (of Trinity College) and was excused from examinations, though he did become involved in undergraduate life’. Clearly, this included rowing on the Cam.

The Illustrated London News, 10 November 1883, ‘Prince Albert Victor at Cambridge University’.

Until recently, I had thought that this was the sum total of ‘rowing Royalty’ stories but I then discovered another heir to the British throne who had an interest in the sport – albeit a frustrated one. On the website of Magdalen (pronounced ‘Maudlin’) College, Oxford, I found a post in a series entitled ‘Treasure of the Month’. The ‘Treasure’ for May 2014 was a photograph album belonging to one of Magdalen College Boat Club’s most successful coxes, Henry Bensley ‘Ben’ Wells, who coxed three University Boat Race victories (1911–1913) and won an Olympic Gold Medal with the Leander Eight at the 1912 Stockholm Games. I intend to return to the full story of Wells and his photographs at a later date, but for now I want to look at just one of his pictures.

Oxford students following a race during Eights Week, 1913. Picture reproduced by kind permission of Magdalen College.

The Magdalen website explains the significance of the above picture:

Wells’ prowess (as a cox) attracted the attention of a number of admirers, including a young man known to Wells as Eddie, whose own ambitions to be a cox had been scotched by his parents. Eddie, known to society as HRH Edward, Prince of Wales, became good friends with Wells and the two men kept up a correspondence for some years after leaving Oxford. The College Archives hold 15 letters to Wells from Edward.

Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George V, known to his family as David, would become Edward VIII (albeit for less than a year) and, after abdicating the throne in 1936 to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, then became the Duke of Windsor. He is the young man in the trilby hat and bow tie, unnoticed in the excited crowd. He had entered Magdalen in October 1912 as one of the processes of preparing him for his future duties as King. ’Underprepared intellectually’ to read for a degree, he was given tutorials by the college president who later commented that ‘bookish he will never be’. However, unlike when his grandfather (Edward VII), was at Oxford, students did not have to stand when he entered a lecture hall and generally he was treated as a normal junior member of college (though he did employ a valet and was also the first Magdalen undergraduate to have a private bathroom). The website ‘Edwardian Promenade’ has an extract from Edward, Prince of Wales: An Authentic Biography (1921) by G. Ivy Sanders that covers Edward’s time at Oxford. It includes this:

He resided in college rooms, dined in hall, or at one of the University clubs, and mixed freely with his fellow undergraduates. For nearly two years he played football for the college second eleven, became a private in the Officer Training Corps, hunted, golfed, ran with the beagles, and drove his own motor car, not always with strict regard to speed limits. Although he did not take an active part in rowing, he was as keen as anyone among the crowd which followed his college crews along the towpath.

Edward, the student Prince, who left Oxford after eight terms without any academic qualifications. To be fair to him, when he was told that he would be going to Magdalen, he protested that he had ‘neither the mind nor will for books’ and claimed that his years at university ‘would be wasted’ and initially thought it ‘a dreary chore to be finished with the least effort and as quickly as possible’.

Magdalen has put online some brief summaries of the correspondence that Edward sent to Wells and they included frequent references to rowing. In February 1913, he talks about Torpids, in March he reports on a Bump Supper, in July, he discusses ‘the exploits of the Leander crew’ and in March 1914 he asks about Wells coxing OUBC. What particularly interested me was the website’s assertion that Edward’s ambitions to be a cox ‘had been scotched by his parents’, that is by George V and Queen Mary. My reaction to this was one of surprise.

King George, a peculiar and pedantic man, was a Victorian in his attitudes and he had ‘little sympathy for experiences different from his own’. Even at the age of 18 when Edward went up to Oxford, I imagine that the heir to the throne was already developing the attitudes and lifestyle that would eventually see him become one of the leading personalities of the inter-war ‘Jazz Age’. He was beginning to inhabit a modern world which his Father could not begin to comprehend. Things like his clothes and his music were anathema to George but even worse was his dislike of formality and protocol and his desire to put personal satisfaction before duty. Thus, I would have thought that the King and Queen would have in fact encouraged their son’s interest in a respectable, traditional and ‘manly’ sport such as rowing, one that required virtues that George approved of such as discipline and commitment and one that would have seen Edward inhabiting boatclubs rather than nightclubs.

Edward on the Isis – but in a punt, not a rowing boat.

I contacted Mark Blanford-Baker, the author of Upon The Elysian Stream: 150 Years of Magdalen College Boat Club, Oxford (2008)*, to find out more about the Royal opposition to Edward coxing. Mark held that the evidence for this came from correspondence held in Magdalen’s archives and that the Palace was concerned about ‘security’. I commented that Royal security was not very tight in those days and there seemed to be no worry about the Prince’s safety on the football field or golf course. Mark replied:

It is curious but I am not sure what the real issue might have been – he was the ideal size to be a cox! He did follow the Boat Race on the umpire’s launch one year and maybe the Palace officials took fright at the rough water…… So it may have been safety from the elements rather than troublemakers.

This is very possible, though he followed the Boat Race in April 1911, which was 18 months before he went to Oxford. Perhaps there was a fear of physical injury if he took part in ‘bump’ racing, something that looks more dangerous than it usually proves to be. Probably we may never know exactly why Edward was prevented from becoming active in the boat club but we can speculate that, if he had joined MCBC and if he had eventually surrendered to the costs and disciplines that high performance coxing demands, whether this would have made him a different person who, later during the Abdication Crisis, may have taken different decisions about duty and sacrifice.

1936 – The Year of the Three Kings. Image: Wikipedia.org

* Upon The Elysian Stream: 150 Years of Magdalen College Boat Club, Oxford by Mark Blanford-Baker is a lavishly illustrated book of 300 pages which covers developments within the sport as well as the history of MCBC. It is available from the Oxford University Shop at £20. This is a £15 reduction from its original price – which is not a reflection on the quality of this splendid publication!

Editor’s note: While the British monarchs seem not to have been rowers, some Scandinavian kings and princes did show interest in the sport, i.e. the Swedish Prince Gustaf Adolf, heir to the Swedish throne, rowed at Lundsbergs boarding school. He died in an airplane crash in 1947. As a young prince, King of Frederik IX of Denmark was a member of one of the rowing clubs in Copenhagen.

Great piece by Martin Cross about Gallipoli and the oarsmen who fought there, “Rowing to remember Gallipoli 100 years on” on FISA Worldrowing.com – read the article here.

‘The Polling’ by William Hogarth (1697 – 1764), one of a series of four paintings of 1755 entitled ‘The Humours of an Election’ showing the endemic corruption in voting in Britain before the 1832 Great Reform Act.

Tim Koch writes:

The United Kingdom votes for a new government (or not) on 7 May and even at this late date, the polls cannot indicate a probable winner. All British General Elections are peculiar in their own ways but 2015 is proving to be one of the strangest. Historically Britain’s single member constituencies and ‘first past the post’ voting has produced a strong two-party system with little room for smaller parties or for coalitions. However, in recent years an increasing disaffection with mainstream politics has seen people turn away from both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, with Scotland leading the way in this. The Scots have abandoned the Conservatives for some time now and the joke is that Scotland has more pandas (two) than Conservative Members of Parliament (one). It now looks like it is Labour’s turn for the Braveheart treatment as its traditional supporters consider voting for the Scottish Nationalist Party. In England particularly, the potential demise of the traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats, and the influence of the new kid on the voting bloc, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), are factors which may have a great effect on the results. Of course, cynicism about the established order is nothing new, as the cartoon of 1837 reproduced below shows.

‘An Old Song to a New Tune’ by John Doyle (1797 – 1868).

The caption reads:

“Row brothers row
The stream runs fast
The Rapids are near
And our day-light’s past.”

It was published on 17 June 1837 in expectation of a General Election which would be called as soon as the dying King William IV actually passed away. William died on the 20 June and the subsequent election ran from 24 July to 18 August, the last time Parliament was dissolved on the demise of a Monarch.

The cartoon depicts the character of John Bull (the personification of Great Britain), King William and four prominent members of the reformist Whig Party, then in government. They are Lord Melbourne (Prime Minister), Lord John Russell (Home Secretary), Lord Palmerston (Foreign Secretary) and Viscount Duncannon (Lord Privy Seal). The Whig reformist tradition was absorbed into the new Liberal Party in 1859 and the Liberals dominated progressive politics until they were superseded by the centre-left Labour Party after the 1914 – 1918 War. In 2015, the Liberals’ successors, the Liberal Democrats, have for the past five years been in a coalition government with the Conservative Party, but this has not gone well for them and they seem to be heading for the political rapids. The fate of their 1837 predecessors was a happier one. They had been in power almost continually since 1830 and perhaps Doyle, the cartoonist, thought that it was time for a change, but the Whigs won the 1837 election and were in office until 1841. Russell, Palmerston and Melbourne were all to serve two terms each as Prime Minister.

Although he was fairly even handed in his mockery, Doyle, an Irish Roman Catholic, was said to actually favour the Whigs, mainly because of their support of Catholic Emancipation. Four of Doyle’s sons became prominent in the art world and he was a grandfather of novelist Arthur Conan Doyle. The British Library website says this of him:

Unlike earlier cartoonists such as James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson, John Doyle refused to portray his subjects as grotesque caricatures, preferring instead to produce faithful likenesses of his subjects and to jibe them politely with his subtle wit.

I am sure that modern politicians would provide Doyle with more than enough material but, sadly, these days there may not be much of a market for politeness, subtlety or wit.

The other day, it was announced that this year’s winners of the British Sports Book Awards, for the first time sponsored by the pen-maker Cross, will be publicised on Wednesday, 3 June. The ceremony will be held at the legendary Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. The event will be filmed for broadcast as a one hour Highlights Programme on SkySports sometime after 7 June.

The Cross Awards have the following categories:

Autobiography of the Year
Biography of the Year
Cricket Book of the Year
Football Book of the Year
Horse Racing Book of the Year
Rugby Book of the Year
Cycling Book of the Year
Illustrated Book of the Year
Outstanding General Sports Writing Award
New Writer of the Year

Looking through the shortlist there is actually a ‘rowing’ book among the six titles in the category Cross New Writer Award. The book is Salt, Sweat, Tears by Adam Rackley. About the book, the Cross British Sports Book Awards writes on its website:

Fewer people have rowed across the Atlantic than have climbed Everest. Adam Rackley is among them. For 70 days he and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven metres long and two metres wide, in one of the world’s most extreme environments. He was following in the wake of a handful of others who have successfully made the crossing – a pair of Norwegian fisherman crossing in 1896, the notorious smuggler and shark hunter John Fairfax in 1969 – and many more who haven’t survived the attempt. This is the story of all these journeys, filled with adventure, endurance and self-discovery.

The Cross British Sports Book Awards is the major annual promotion for Sports Writing & Publishing and have been handed out since 2002. The awards exist to highlight the most outstanding sports books of the previous calendar year, to showcase their merits and to enhance their reputation and profile.

Get more details here.

‘‘Yes, I did row a little at one time – why, how did you discover that?’’

Tim Koch writes:

I have long observed that the size of an individual’s collection of rowing memorabilia is often in inverse proportion to their success as a rower. This cartoon is from a 1948 issue of the British humorous magazine Punch and is by Fougasse, the pen-name of the cartoonist and commercial artist, Cyril Bird (1887–1965). His most famous works were for the British propaganda effort in the 1939–1945 War, notably the ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ posters which showed Hitler and Göring listening to everyday domestic conversations. They stressed the need for secrecy at a time when even seemingly innocuous pieces of information could be of use to the enemy.

One of the ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ series produced by Fougasse for the Ministry of Information, work that he would not take payment for and which earned him the CBE. They were very effective pieces of propaganda because they were light-hearted and undogmatic.

During the 1914–1918 War, Bird had been a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and was so badly wounded at Gallipoli that he was not expected to live. While convalescing, he submitted cartoons to Punch magazine and from 1916 was a regular contributor. He used the name Fougasse after an unstable French landmine whose ‘effectiveness was not always reliable and its aim was uncertain.’ Bird’s work was notable for its ‘pronounced linear simplicity’, his drawings evolving to ‘an innovative, spare, style that was both unique and popular.’

Cyril Kenneth Bird, a.k.a. ‘Fougasse.’

Before the Second World War, Bird was best known for his commercial work for London Transport in particular, his witty observational humour producing eye-catching and memorable posters. He later became the only cartoonist to ever edit Punch, which he did from 1949 to 1953, previously serving as its art editor from 1937. Harry Mount of the Daily Telegraph has noted that ‘Punch has now become a byword for old, tired jokes, but in the late 40s it was razor-sharp, and responsible for hoovering up all the best young talent.’

‘Scotland For Ever’ One of Bird’s earlier, more traditionally representational works, published during the First World War. The Scottish soldier is ‘correcting’ the German slogan ‘Gott strafe England’ (‘May God punish England’) to include Scotland (and Wales).

In 1935, Advertisers Weekly called Bird ‘one of the most subtle interpreters of the British idiom that we have ever known’. He certainly captured an idiosyncrasy of some readers of Hear The Boat Sing. You know who you are.

‘A few of the authentic fashions the properly dressed college man should own’. As late as 1965, shops could survive selling these sort of clothes to students. Also, I am not sure that ‘wardrobing’ is a verb. Picture: theivyleaguelook.blogspot.com

Tim Koch writes:

One of the non-rowing blogs that I read regularly is Ivy Style. New York City based ‘Founder and Editor-in-Chief’ Christian Chensvold writes about ‘Ivy League’ clothing, a style of dress that I am particularly fond of. It dominated American fashion from the post-war period until the early 1960s and was most famously merchandised by the Brooks Brothers stores. Students going to college after the 1939-1945 War, (many from less wealthy backgrounds but assisted by the ‘G.I. Bill’) adopted what was then thought of as a very casual style of dress but which, by today’s standards, is anything but informal. Trousers (‘pants’) were ex-army flat fronted khakis (‘chinos’) and lace up shoes were abandoned in favour of slip on leather ‘loafers’. Much clothing was originally from Britain but was often reinvented to be made more comfortable – as when shoulder padding was removed in favour of ‘natural shoulders’. Scotland provided jackets in Harris tweed and crew neck sweaters in Shetland wool. Stiff shirts were replaced by ones of comfortable ‘Oxford’ cloth with soft, button down collars. In the late 1950s, nearly three quarters of all suits sold in the U.S. were in the Ivy League style but, with the coming of the 1960s, its popularity with young people died out within a few short years. Freshmen, who started college in 1963, would quite possibly wear a jacket and tie around campus. By the time they graduated, there was a good chance that they would be wearing jeans and T-shirts.

Christian still runs Ivy Style but has recently started a new style blog, Masculine Interiors: The Design World Of Bachelor Pads, Private Clubs, Country Estates And Supervillain Lairs and two recent posts have ‘a rowing angle’.

Jack Carlson at the Penn AC Rowing Club on Boathouse Row in Philadelphia. Picture: Jason Varney.

Masculine Interiors has a guest post from our friend Jack Carlson, author of Rowing Blazers, and he writes about his five favourite rowing related interiors featured in his book. He chooses the boathouse-come-frathouse of ARV Westfalen in Münster, Germany, Columbia University’s Gould-Remmer Boathouse in New York, Harvard’s Newell Varsity Lounge in Boston, the Goldie Boathouse in Cambridge and the Oriel College Boat Club Captain’s room in Oxford. The Oriel room was the subject of a HTBS post in June 2014.

Calum Pontin, then Captain of Oriel College Boat Club, in the Captain’s Room.

The picture above provides a nice link to the second Masculine Interiors post that includes rowing. In a piece entitled ‘Harvard Dorm Rooms, 1899’, Christian writes:

These photos are from the Harvard library’s collection of images and are circa 1899. Tradition is supplied by the furniture, wallpaper, paintings, etc., and youth is supplied by the timely ephemera tacked alongside.

One room in particular is of interest to HTBS types.

The Harvard ‘dorm room’ of what looks like a very successful and enthusiastic rower, c.1899. Picture: The Harvard Library.

While the above picture is charming in its own right, one small detail makes it extra special. In the top left of the fireplace is a Vanity Fair magazine lithograph of R.H. ‘Rudie’ Lehmann, the Briton who had coached at Harvard in 1896, 1897 and 1898. HTBS wrote about this in February 2014:

While the famous coach and writer on rowing matters, Rudie Lehmann is mostly remembered for coaching either Oxford or Cambridge (he studied and rowed for Cambridge, but never in a Blue boat), Lehmann also coached Berliner Ruder Klub and Harvard University. He received an invitation in 1896 from his American friend Francis Peabody, whom he had rowed with at Cambridge. The rowing at Harvard University was in disorder so Lehmann was offered the opportunity to give Harvard a helping hand, teaching the crimson crews the proper English stroke. Lehmann arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the first time in mid-November 1896. He returned to Harvard both in 1897 and 1898, and although Harvard greatly improved with Lehmann as their coach, the crimsons never won a race during this time. As the true gentleman coach, Lehmann never asked for any pay (but in) June 1897, Harvard awarded Lehmann an honorary degree…

Lehmann pictured by Vanity Fair in 1895. While Harvard may not have won in Lehmann’s time, he was obviously thought enough of to merit a place amongst at least one student’s collection of rowing memorabilia.

Rudolph Chambers Lehmann was a multi-talented man. Outside of rowing, he was a Liberal Party politician who was a Member of Parliament from 1906 to 1910. He was also a writer, musician and poet who most famously contributed to Punch and Granta magazines. One of his poems, “A Ramshackle Room”, has previously appeared on HTBS and goes well alongside the dorm room picture. Here are the first three verses:

A Ramshackle Room

When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,
And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;
When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,
And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,
Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am
My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.

‘Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain
Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;
With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,
And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;
With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,
And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.

There’s a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes –
A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay –
There’s a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes
When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away.
There’s a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot,
Such as Plato, and Dickens, and Liddell and Scott.

Another view of the Captain’s Room at Oriel. There is no ‘fat jolly jar of tobacco’ and it’s not near the Cam but otherwise Lehmann could be writing with it in mind.

A photograph from 1898 with Winter’s sign.

Göran R Buckhorn writes:

Now and then HTBS receives questions about old oarsmen, crews, clubs and equipment. We do our best to help with answering these questions, or try to point the person in the right direction to where answers can be found. Sometimes, we also put the questions out there to HTBS readers, who we know are an intelligent lot with tons of knowledge of rowing ‘stuff’. So maybe you can help Paul M. to get more information about a boat and oar maker by the name of G.F. Winter.

Paul, a non-rower in England, writes that he has acquired an unusual pair of old oars, which were manufactured by G.F. Winter of Eton and Windsor, according to the manufacturing label on the oars. Paul writes: ‘While researching Winter, I have found him in Eton, where, in 1898, boat builders were: O.H. Goodman, High St (upstream of bridge); H. Husted, High St (downstream of bridge); G.F. Winter, Brocas St; Brocas Boat House Co., Brocas St.’

Doing research about G.F. Winter, Paul came across some old photos of the Winters boat establishment in Eton, next to the old, he believes, now demolished boat house. He continues: ‘In two photos (1898 [see on top] and 1910 [see below]), you have to look closely to see the Winter signs’.

Winter in Brocas Street in 1895.

A photograph from 1910 with G.F. Winter’s boathouse.

Paul has also been in contact with Darryl Stickler at rowableclassics.com, author of Rowable Classics: Wooden Single Sculling Boats and Oars (2008), to hear if he could help him to get more information about Winter and the oars that Paul bought. Strickler writes to Paul:

‘The oars were made for use with “thole pins” (fixed wooden “posts”) not swivel oarlocks, which were used pre-WWI and by some crews after The Great War as well. The “double girder” shaft with through-holes to lighten the shaft was not widely used. Thus, yours is quite unique and is probably one of very few like it left – anywhere.’

Paul’s also writes about Winter:

‘I have also found out that G.F Winter, Eton and Windsor is either the son of or the same G.F. Winter who, in 1881 at the age of 30, was a boat builder in Ferry Path, Chesterton, Cambridge. I know Winter was in Eton in 1895, photo shows his name on a building and that Winter of Eton died in 1910.’

Any HTBS reader who can help Paul, and the rest of us, with information on G.F. Winter, the oar maker, please write a comment, or send your findings via an e-mail to HTBS at: gbuckhorn – at – gmail – dot – com

Thank you!

Famous oarsman and boat builder Harry Clasper.

A press release came to the HTBS Headquarters. It reads:

Relatives of Harry Clasper, the famous North East rower, are being invited to a family re-union in South Shields to celebrate a play that commemorates the 170th anniversary of Harry and his brothers bringing the World Championship to the North East for the first time. It was a feat that Jarrow-raised Harry Clasper repeated a further eight times from 1845, making him the most famous rower in the world.

Dunston-born Harry was the man the Blaydon Races was written for and 130,000 people crowded the streets of Newcastle to pay their respects when he died in 1870, at age 58.

‘Hadaway Harry’, as he was nicknamed, will be the subject of a new play by North East playwright Ed Waugh, whose national and international hits, co-written with Trevor Wood, include Dirty Dusting, Waiting for Gateaux and Maggie’s End.

Waugh, who is responsible for writing the popular Laffalang and most recently The Accidental Activist, said: ‘This is an amazing story. As well as being a champion himself, Harry trained North East world champions and designed the boats still used in the Olympics and boat races today.’He continued: ‘I’ve had fantastic support from David Clasper, Harry’s great-great nephew, whose great-great uncle was the cox in the winning crew in June 1845 and who has written two books about Harry.’

‘Rowing was the mass sport of the working class before football, and the Tynesiders beating the “unbeatable” Thamesmen caused a national sensation.’

Harry Clasper, a former Durham miner, was one of 14 children and, in turn, had 12 children himself. Members of the Clasper family from all over the UK are coming to see Hadaway Harry.

Ed Waugh

Ed Waugh added: ‘I keep getting approached by people who are either related to Harry or who know people related to Harry and we thought getting members of the family together would be a fantastic way of officially launching the play. It’s a project that will hopefully bring to people’s attention how Harry was probably the greatest sportsman the North East has ever produced.’

The Clasper re-union will take place at South Shields Library in Georg Square in the town centre, as the prelude to a four-week Harry Clasper exhibition in Riddick’s, the former shoe shop on Fowler Street, South Shields.

The Clasper Family re-union runs from noon until 2pm on Saturday, May 30.

Anyone with Harry Clasper memorabilia is asked to bring it along to show attendees.

As well as an exhibition about Harry Clasper, Waugh will give a talk about why he wrote Hadaway Harry. Entry to the event is free and everyone is invited to attend.

Hadaway Harry, which has been supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and South Tyneside Council, is a funny and poignant tribute to the North East hero, and will be performed in venues that have a resonance with Harry Clasper’s life.

All tickets on the tour cost only £10 and can be obtained as follows:

Maritime Trust (Boathouse), South Shields

TOUR DATES

Maritime Trust (Boathouse), South Shields, NE33 1LQ
Monday, June 29 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tuesday, June 30 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Wednesday, July 1 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel (0191) 4247788

Gala Theatre, Durham (as part of the Durham Miners Gala programme)
Thursday, July 2 – 7.30pm
Friday, July 3 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel 03000 266600

The Low Light, North Shields, NE30 1JA
Saturday, July 4 – 7.30pm
Sunday, July 5 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel (0191) 2574506

Monday, July 6, No Performances

Discovery Museum, Newcastle
Tuesday, July 7 – 7.30pm
Wednesday, July 8- 2.30pm/7.30pm
Thursday, July 9 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel (0191) 232 6789 or (0191) 2774100

Bede’s World, Jarrow
Friday, July 10 – 7.30pm
Saturday, July 11 – 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel (0191) 4892106 or 4247788

For further information, please visit www.edwaughandtrevorwood.co.uk

The Fred Roffe Collection of trophies, medals and memorabilia of Harry and John H. Clasper. Photo: www.rowinghistory.net

HTBS editor note: I had the great honour of being a friend of the late Fred Roffe, of Hampton Bays, New York State. Fred was a descendent of Harry Clasper’s son, John H. Clasper, who also was a famous boat builder. Please read about Fred and how he donated some marvellous pieces of Clasper memorabilia to the National Rowing Foundation in 2002 – here.

G.F. Winter was an apprentice to the boatbuilding company Searle & Sons, Lambeth.

Göran R Buckhorn writes:

On 20 May HTBS posted an question from Paul M., who was asking for information about boat builder and oar maker G.F. Winter of Eton and Windsor. One of HTBS’s most loyal reader, Malcolm Cook, replied to me that information about Winter could be found in an obituary about Winter published in the 1911 Rowing Almanack and Oarsman’s Companion. Many thanks to Malcolm, and here follows the obituary:

Mr G. F. Winter, the Eton and Cambridge boat builder, died on Aug. 13 [1910] after a short illness in Princess Christian’s Nursing Home at Windsor [see image of the building here], at the age of fifty-nine. Mr Winter was apprenticed to the boat-building business at Messrs Searle’s [sic!], Lambeth, and afterwards went to Cambridge. He went to Eton about a quarter of a century ago, and his premises were largely used by Eton wet-bobs, many famous oarsmen boating from his rafts. He took the times of the Eton races, and had a good deal to do with Lower Boys’ boating. He was much missed at Eton. During 1909 he was in failing health, and went to Bath to take to the water for rheumatism. He seemed much better afterwards, and was at business until short time before his death, which came rather suddenly. To Etonians “Winter” was an institution at the riverside, and his knowledge of the Thames and boating was very complete. When he went to Eton there was an old bouthouse owned by Tolladay. This was pulled down, and the present extensive premises were erected by Mr Winter, which he always placed at the disposal of the executives at the Windsor and Eton Amateur Regatta, the Eton Excelsior R.C., and Eton and Windsor Humane Society swimming and diving races.

Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club 1941 to 2014: The Struggle Against Inequality, published earlier this year.

This article, in two parts, is compiled by Jane Kingsbury and Carol Williams and based on their book Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club 1941 to 2014: The Struggle Against Inequality, which came out earlier this year. The book can be obtained via Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club’s website.

Although the women of Cambridge and Oxford have rowed races against each other since 1927, a year after Oxford University Women’s Boat Club (OUWBC) was founded, in the early days the crews from Cambridge University were composed of rowers from Newnham College, and as a result none of them was awarded a Blue as the Oxford women were. To rectify this inequality, the members of Newnham College Boat Club (NCBC) decided in 1940-1941 to persuade the women of Girton to join them and to found a university boat club (CUWBC). That year, the first race between crews from each university, rather than between OUWBC and Newnham College, took place on the Cam and it was won by Oxford. The women from Cambridge were all awarded Blues and could wear (or borrow – this was wartime) the same light blue blazer as other athletes with Cambridge University Women’s Athletics Club emblazoned on the pocket.

There had been rowing at Girton before the 1940s but usually only in small boats, if at all. Girton College Boat Club (GCBC) did not approve of rowing in VIIIs. One reason for this lack of crews could have been the fact that the Girton girls had traditionally been told to leave their bikes at Castle Hill and walk into town from there. This would have made getting to outings on the river more difficult as they would have had to walk everywhere, which is slower than cycling. Newham girls were allowed to cycle – with restrictions (see Boats for Women on www.cuwbchistory.org)

This joining of forces of rowers from the only two women’s colleges at Cambridge at that time perhaps only took place because it was war time and a lot of the men had gone to the front. The ratio, which had been set by the university, of nine male students to one female student, was drastically altered in the early 1940s and there were far more women than usual compared to the men. Added to this, the formidable Miss Chrystal was in charge of the Amalgamated Games Club (which seems to have been a Newnham institution) and she prevailed upon the Chairman of the Blues committee, Mr Frederick Brittain of Jesus College, to allow a joint boat club and for women to be awarded Blues. Unfortunately, this situation did not last for very long. Within a few weeks, he had thought better of it and later, in 1948, Mr Brittain was objecting to women using the word ‘Blue’ and ‘wearing clothing in CUBC uniform without permission’. In fact, resistance to oarswomen being awarded blues and wearing ‘Cambridge Blue’ was to persist in Cambridge for a very long time.

1942 crew rowing a race (courtesy of Newnham College).

The first women’s Varsity boat race in 1941 was very dramatic as it was rowed in flood conditions. It had proved impossible to get through to the women at Oxford to cancel and so the race went ahead, even though the towpath was ‘under so much water that one could not see Grassy Corner’ according to Iris Preston, who gives a detailed account in her book From Newnham College Boat Club to CUWBC. In addition, the Cambridge coach G.M. Trevelyan caused some excitement when, being unable to see the bank, he accidentally rode his bike into the river. Members of CUWBC only found out later that day that CUBC had forbidden them to go out on the river that day.

By the next year, 1942, the women’s crew was highly regarded on the river and won not only against Oxford but also against Reading and Bedford.

1942 crew photo (courtesy of Newnham College).

Initially, in the early 1940s, there was a period during which the women of Girton were becoming more proficient in rowing when crews were largely made up of women from Newnham, although Joyce ‘Joan’ Hunter became the first Blue from Girton in 1942. However, by 1944-1945 CUWBC had three crews on the river, the first mainly containing Girton rowers, the second rowers from Newnham and the third a mixed crew. (For more details of those who rowed for CUWBC go here.) At this stage, CUWBC was still rowing with the brown and gold colours of NCBC, not the blue of a university crew. However, the boat race itself was becoming a more established feature and, after the end of wartime restrictions, it was easier to travel to each other’s rivers. A tradition had evolved of rowing one year on the Isis at Oxford, and the next year on the Cam at Cambridge. (In fact, this pattern continued until the mid-1970s when the women’s crews moved to race at Henley, joining the men’s lightweight crews from the two universities who had emulated the original Henley Boat Race of 1829 by racing each other there.)

Ruth Bonney’s shorts in 1953.

However, when the Oxford women’s crew was banned from the river after they went over a weir the day before the boat race in the mid-1950s, women’s rowing on both rivers went into decline. OUWBC, which was said to be facing financial problems, was unable to produce crews to row against Cambridge and this left the Cambridge women with no opposition for nearly a decade.

In the absence of a Varsity boat race, the oarswomen at Cambridge could not be awarded Blues and had to be content with colours for the next eight years. They competed against the Cambridge University coxswains’ crew and against other rowing clubs but, perhaps because of this lack of a Varsity race, by the end of the 1950s women had almost disappeared off the Cam. As was to happen more than once, the club looked as though it would cease to be.

1956 rowers and crew racing against the coxes.

But, as often occurred in the history of CUWBC, extinction was narrowly avoided. Two undergraduates from the recently formed college, New Hall, who were each already trailblazers in being the only women engineering students in their college in their year, took on the task of rebuilding the club. They found out that there was one boat, some oars and some petty cash and they cajoled others to come and learn to row and their (male) fellow engineering students to come and coach. With no race against Oxford, they decided to take part in the Clare Novice’s race and join the men in the bumping races. However, here they met with some opposition and the first time they took part, in 1962, they were bumped within 25 yards of the start and ended up on the bank as the crew chasing them had rammed their boat into number 7’s rigger. This did not deter them and they continued to compete in bumping races, much to the delight of spectators, if not the oarsmen.

1961 Val Goldsbrough raising the CUWBC flag before the Clare Novices race.

1962 crew at the Ditch after the bumps race.

The opposition to women rowing intensified, however, and in 1964, the President of CUBC tried to get women banned from rowing in the bumps, even though they had been doing so for a couple of years. The problem seemed to be that women should not be rowing against men according to ARA/WARA rules. But the women claimed that ‘any boat club in the university’ could put in a boat for the bumping races which were not run under ARA rules. The local and national press took up the debate and the CUWBC cox, Ruth Kidd, a law student from Canada, was even led to pronounce that she would register the boat under the Liberian flag of convenience if that was what it took to be able to row. In fact, it was largely the staunch support of their coach, Canon Duckworth, for his ‘Sweaty Betties’ that meant that the women prevailed and, after a big meeting of the rowing community (and some machinations by the Canon), the vote went in favour of the women taking part in the bumps. The Canon also proclaimed at this time that there was no reason why a woman should not cox the men’s boat next year – but, in fact, that took another twenty years.

When the women had rowed in the Mays in 1964 they celebrated afterwards with champagne!

1964 crew list and photo of post-Mays drinks.

It was also in 1964 that CUWBC was surprised to receive a challenge from OUWBC for another Varsity boat race and in March the race between the women of the two universities resumed, being won the first year (and for twelve years thereafter) by Cambridge. It seemed women’s rowing was not going to fade away. In 1965, CUWBC took part in the bumps again and also rowed at Mortlake on the Thames.

1965 crew rowing at Mortlake.

1965 crew by the Plough (photo by Cambridge Evening News).

Despite these struggles during the mid- to late 1960s it is worth noting that in 1969 CUWBC was equalling and beating the selected British crew for international races, from St Georges Rowing Club, and at this time also a previous CUWBC president, Beatrice Scorer, and her partner, Liz Pickering, were being encouraged to train for internationals. This had all occurred within a few years in a club that, on the whole, started with novice rowers to form its crews and had unpaid coaches, who were usually fellow students, and certainly no professional coaches, except perhaps for Canon Duckworth, who was a very experienced cox and coach.

1971 crew before rowing at Pangbourne.

This was still the case in the early 1970s when Pat Fosh tried to get a crew to international standard and it came very close. A coxed four made up of postgraduate students won many events including the British Universities Sports Federation Regatta at Pangbourne, which was held under flood conditions. At this event, one won largely by luck and pluck. But with student coaches, old boats and oars and no boathouse (rowers changed outside or in the bike sheds next the men’s boat house) it was difficult to attain the required standard. If the crew was going to a regatta the boat, a restricted VIII, was split and loaded along with the oars onto the roof racks of two small cars.

At this point, too, CUWBC could easily have disappeared for lack of oarswomen but it was revived again, this time by Vicky Markham, who allowed herself as a complete novice to be talked into taking over as president and, enlisting the support of male friends, she built up the club again and even spent a summer vac writing a fascinating account of the early days of women’s rowing at Cambridge entitled Boats for Women. Vicky was also very pleased that, for once in 1973, the whole women’s crew were awarded Blues. She thought this was a first, but in fact the original crew of 1941 had all been awarded Blues.

The article will continue tomorrow.

1975 Blue Boat

Here is the second part of an article that is compiled by Jane Kingsbury and Carol Williams. It is based on their book Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club 1941 to 2014: The Struggle Against Inequality, which came out earlier this year. The book can be obtained via Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club’s website.

From the 1970s onwards, CUWBC changed gear as the university changed its policy about admitting women undergraduates. Until that point it had decreed that only one student in ten could be female but King’s, Churchill and Clare Colleges decided to become co-educational and allow women to apply to study there. This meant that there were not just women undergraduates at Newnham, Girton and New Hall but also increasingly at other, previously male, colleges as well. (In fact Girton, previously an all-women college, started to admit men as well!)

So after 1973 there was a bigger pool of oarswomen from which CUWBC could select a crew to row for the university. At this stage, too, the national women’s rowing coach, Penny Chuter, became involved training and started coming to the Isis and the Cam to encourage the crews and pick out promising athletes. The club did manage to acquire a new boat at this point with the support of Dr Cindy Griffin from Girton College and financial help from a crew member’s American grandmother, after whom the boat was named. A new set of oars was also found, which were not needed by the members of a school club on the Thames. The oars were Macons, which up to that time the women had not been allowed to use as the men thought they might damage themselves ‘down there’ if they did. Cambridge was also winning at regattas other than the boat race, at Bedford and Reading.

1976 crew rowing under the Green Dragon footbridge.

1976 crew a with their medals after the Southern Universities regatta.

There were other changes that decade, as well. By the mid-1970s, CUWBC’s second boat was a more permanent feature and came to be known as Blondie – perhaps after the pop group of the time, but perhaps also reflecting the fact that the CUBC second boat was called Goldie. And from 1977 the boat races for the two women’s crews were moved to the Thames at Henley after a rather disastrous experience racing at Oxford the previous year. The idea at the time was that this would be neutral water, but as Oxford is much closer to Henley than Cambridge is, the OUWBC crews were able to train there more easily and got to know the river better. Cambridge oarswomen had to pay to stay at Henley for a week prior to the races and, of course, this put the cost of their training up, much of this having to be funded out of their own pockets. It also became clear over time that the last (equinoxial) weekend in March does not provide ideal weather for rowing races and at times the races have had to be curtailed or moved at the last minute. Another major change at the end of the 1970s was when CUWBC chose its first male cox, Mark Mills.

1978 Mark Mills, the first male cox for CUWBC.

The 1978 bumps crew.

In the early 1980s there was still an extreme lack of funds and things were difficult. Although the women’s record of winning against Oxford was better than the men’s at this point, it cost each oarswoman £200 out of their own pocket to row. (The men, meanwhile, appeared to have a large amount of money in the bank.) The women had no boathouse, no boatman and unpaid volunteer coaches. A new set of oars, really needed every three years, cost £1,000 and a loan had to be taken out, which was supported by parents of a crew member, so that finally the club got a new boat, the first for ten years.

With the two women’s races and the men’s lightweight races being rowed at Henley each spring, the event came to be known as the Henley Boat Races and in 1984 these crews were joined by women’s lightweight crew at the point when lightweight rowing for women was just becoming established. The first lightweight crew from Cambridge, which won against Oxford in 1984, all got together again in 2014 for a re-row against Oxford, with one member of the crew flying in from New Zealand and another from New York. Even the spare came back and was rather disappointed to still be the spare! It was a wonderful experience for them, and for the spectators, that they slotted back into rowing together as though they had not been apart for 30 years. (Read their account here.) This lightweight crew then went on to represent Britain in the first international event for lightweight women at Ghent Regatta later in 1984. Other heavyweight oarswomen from CUWBC have also represented their country on many occasions.

The first CUWBC Lightweight crew in 1984 (courtesy of Eaden Lilley/Lafayette)…..

…. and their reunion in 2014.

The first events for oarswomen at the Olympics occurred in 1976 in Montreal and some Cambridge oarswomen were included in the squad. In fact, CUWBC has sent oarswomen to every Olympic Games since then, sixteen club members in all. During the 1980s, the number of women of international standard from CUWBC was growing. There was a pool of talent to be tapped, and it was usually of oarswomen who learnt to row at Cambridge. Over the years, from rowing in crews, which came in near the bottom of the results table, the CUWBC oarswomen have moved up to winning medals in the Olympics of 2004 onwards. Money from the National Lottery has certainly helped rowers to achieve.

1985 Blue Boat crew with Mike Spracklen and Roger Silk.

1989 crew sitting the boat.

For a prolonged period during the late 1980s and 1990s, CUWBC was producing athletes of an international standard and was very fortunate to have high calibre coaches, who did not ask for payment or expenses. Mike Spracklen commuted from Marlow during the Lent term to join the coaching team, which was led by Roger Silk from Cambridge. Ron Needs, who already coached international crews, also joined as a head coach from 1989 and this led to period of success for the club against Oxford which ended in 2000.

1995 Blue Boat crew with coach, Ron Needs.

In 1993, when all six Cambridge crew defeated Oxford, a dinner was held at the Hawk’s club and a photo was taken on this occasion. Unfortunately, it did not seem to bring CUBC and CUWBC closer together. Nor did another social occasion organised by Dr John Marks for the two crews at his cottage in Duxford. John has been a long-standing supporter of both men’s and women’s rowing at Cambridge in many ways, especially as Senior Treasurer to the two clubs, and CUWBC is deeply indebted to him.

Celebration photo taken in 1993 when all six Cambridge crews had beaten Oxford (courtesy of Eaden Lilley/Lafayette).

Success in the women’s boat race led to invitations to CUWBC to row abroad and crews have enjoyed going to the University of Washington and to the Head of the Charles in the USA, as well as to Moscow and European regattas. This international experience of course helped to raise the standard of rowing and CUWBC prospered.

1997 crew with cox Brad Par – always on top!

2007 crew at the Commonwealth Regatta.

Unfortunately for Cambridge, around the turn of the millennium, Oxford decided to put more effort into sport. A new boathouse with good facilities was planned and built at Wallingford and it was shared by all rowers, male, female, heavyweight and lightweight. In Cambridge, the women were still keeping their boat outside a boathouse on the grass on the Cam and renting cramped facilities with a boat rack and a toilet but no changing room at Ely. There was no access for them on the Cam at the Goldie Boathouse with all its training facilities until 2012, and even then, they had to raise the money themselves for the small extension of changing rooms, an office and kitchen. By this stage members of CUWBC were paying for rent, kit, training camp and accommodation to the tune of £2,000 each year in order to represent the university.

Goldie Boathouse in 2013 with minibuses sponsored by Mellon and Newton.

Despite all this, CUWBC has also been fortunate in the limitless pool of support it has received over the years from many people. In the early days relatives paid for a boat, later a coach supplied another boat, as did a chair of the executive committee. One father built a trailer and another lent his Land Rover to tow a trailer. Club members raised money themselves in inventive ways, one year even staging a race rowed backwards to bring in some money. Later there were boat race balls with celebrities, where wonderful prizes were donated and raffled.

The club has also had reason to be grateful to a whole host of sponsors and without this support rowing for Cambridge women would not have been possible. Some sponsors, like Beefeater and Xchanging, even offered joint funding for the men’s and women’s clubs. But in each case negotiations foundered and so parity did not happen until 2012 when, with BNY Mellon sponsoring the men and their daughter company, Newton Investment Management Ltd, sponsoring the women. Finally, the Boat Race Company Ltd, the BBC and CUBC were brought to the table and agreement was reached that the women would race on the same day as the men on the Tideway in 2015. In fact, it seems that it could have been American sponsorship, which is governed by Title IX legislation, as well as the expectations of American investors of equality in funding for men and women in sport, which finally created the situation where the women joined the men in the Boat Race.

Seventy-five years after CUWBC was founded this event was something to celebrate, and celebrate we did, whoever won or lost.

Newton Trophy designed by Rod Kelly and donated by Newton with presidents from both clubs in 2013.

Looking to the future, fundraising continues to this day. Cambridge University is now planning a joint boathouse at Ely for men’s, women’s and lightweight crews, which will make a vast difference, especially for the women and lightweights. But there is a long way to go before this is achieved. The women’s crews can now afford the same support as the men’s crews and also have a wonderful trophy for their race, commissioned by Newton, but the race needs to be one in which there are athletes of similar calibre in the two crews. For the first Tideway race OUWBC had a crew containing a double Olympic medal winning stroke, as well as junior international rowers. Although the Cambridge crew also contained oarswomen with junior international experience it could not match this, but has the spur to do so in the future.

If this has inspired an interest in rowing for women at Cambridge University do read more in the book Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club 1941 to 2014: The Struggle Against Inequality, which can be ordered via www.cuwbchistory.org

Louis Petrin writes from Australia:

All the talk is about Sweden’s Måns Zelmerlöw winning the Eurovison Song Contest with his song Heroes, even here in Australia.

What has this to do with rowing? Well, like many strange things in life, Måns was born in Lund, where HTBS founder Göran studied at the university, and Måns now lives in Malmö, which is the birthplace of Göran.

A great segue to talk about pop stars and rowing….. Robbie Williams and his band-mates from Take That had spent four days shooting a promo on a lake, dressed as olden-day oarsmen for their song, The Flood.

The video features the five members of the band racing against another crew in five-seater (a very rare quintuple) sculling boats custom-made by Carl Douglas Racing Shells, later auctioned on eBay for £3,800 ($5,900).

Watch Take That’s The Flood here.

The band’s boat is named Progress, after the record breaking number one album, whilst all the rowers wear old-fashioned white rowing kit including long socks.

I can just see the coach calling out, ‘Robbie…. Thumbs on the button!’ ‘Bow and Two, head in the boat!’ ‘Robbie, knees together!’ ‘I am off to the pub!’

The band members are shown racing against a younger crew and although losing the competition, the group continue going past the finish line and rowing down the River Thames past famous London landmarks before fading away into a stormy sea.

In fact, much of the long shots of rowing used body doubles. Leander Club was asked to provide ten rowers for filming.

For the close-ups of the band rowing, the boat was attached to a barge which kept it stable and pushed them so all they had to do was the actions.

The video for the single was filmed on Dorney Lake, near Windsor and on the Thames in Runnymede, Surrey and London in July of 2010.

The song peaked at number five in the Swedish pop charts.

An image from an 1822 college race, which some say depicts a disputed bump between Jesus and Brasenose Colleges although the timing does not really support that, Christopher Seward writes.

Today two Oxford college boat clubs, Brasenose College BC and Jesus College BC, are celebrating that it is 200 years ago they first raced each other in a Head of the River Race.

William O’Chee and Christopher Seward write:

2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the first Head of the River, which was raced between crews from Jesus College and Brasenose College, with the latter triumphing. The first bumps races began within Iffley Lock and ended at Mr King’s barge near the current finishing line.

In this period, the boats were built with a gangplank running down the middle. When the lock gates were opened, the stroke of the Head boat, who was standing in the bow with a boat-hook, would run down the gangplank pushing the boat out of the lock as quickly as possible before resuming his seat at the oar.

Although it is often believed that amateur rowing began at Eton or Westminster, recreational rowing is clearly attested in Oxford in the 1760s and was flourishing by the 1790s.

The significance of the 1815 race is that it is the first formally recorded race between two boat clubs. Prior to this, there had been races between professional watermen such as the Ranelagh Regatta of 1775, but there is no evidence of racing between any boat clubs. The modern sport of rowing began in Oxford, between Brasenose and Jesus. This makes Brasenose College Boat Club, and Jesus College Boat Club the oldest known competitive amateur rowing clubs in the world for no club anywhere can boast of having rowed competitively prior to their race in 1815.

Brasenose and Jesus raced again in 1816, with Brasenose again prevailing. In 1817, they were joined by Christ Church who went head three years in a row. In 1820, Christ Church did not put out a crew, and no record of racing that year remains. Brasenose and Jesus are recorded as racing in 1821, and 1822. In the latter year, although bumped by Jesus, the Brasenose crew rowed on, and then tried to haul down the Jesus flag. A rematch was held, and Brasenose won.

Christ Church returned to racing in 1824, when Exeter also raced for the first time. By now Eights was well established. The tradition continues in 2015, two centuries on from that first race.

Brasenose leading Jesus at the celebratory row during the 200-year anniversary in Oxford.

At yesterday’s anniversary celebrations in Oxford, where Brasenose College Boat Club and Jesus College Boat Club organised a well-attended get-together to celebrate that it was 200 years ago the two boat clubs first met for a Head of the River Race, which William O’Chee and Christopher Seward wrote about on HTBS yesterday, the two clubs rowed a celebratory race. The crews raced each other in two replicas of old-fashioned cutters. Rowing historian Chrisopher Dodd, of the River & Rowing Museum, was there to take some photographs.

Crowd at the Bumps ‘Summer Eights” awaits Brasenose v Jesus 200 annivary race.

The crews according to the race programme:

The Jesus crew.

Jesus College BC
Bow Rosanna Smith
2 Richard Winslade
3 Oliver Bentley
4 Bill Appleby
5 William Saunders
6 Boris Mavra
7 Simon Pryke
Stroke Lestyn Roberts
Cox Elaine Bailes

Brasenose crew.

Brasenose College BC
Bow Nicola Smith
2 Dom Barton
3 Hauke Engel
4 Ed Martin
5 Tim Whitaker
6 Michal Plotkowiak
7 Tom Baker
Stroke Jim Kirwan
Cox Jack Carlson

Brasenose College BC won the race!

Germany took Gold, Great Britain Silver and Russia Bronze in the eights at the European Championships in Poznan, Poland. Photo: http://www.worldrowing.com

During three days, 29-31 May, the European Championships were held in Poznan, Poland. Results and race videos can be found here.