To Follow the Etiquette

The date is 21 July, 1913, and the well-dressed gentleman wearing a boater, being escorted by mounted police on the towpath at Putney, is none other than Ernest Barry, the reigning world professional sculling champion. Barry is there to defend his title on the Championship course between Putney and Mortlake on the Thames against Harry Pearce of Australia and for £500 aside. Barry won the race at 24 min. 9 sec. Harry’s son, Bobby Pearce, would, twenty years later, in 1933, take the professional championship title from Ted Phelps. Bobby Pearce had begun his sculling career as an amateur, taking two Olympic gold medals in the single in 1928 and 1932, and the Diamonds at Henley in 1931.

The story is actually only an excuse for me to point out that as it is Labor Day in the U.S. today, which means that it is the last day to wear your straw hat if you care to follow the etiquette. So hats off, gentlemen!

Guiseppe, Wally and Friends

WDK, New York Herald

Tim Koch writes,

After posting my recent piece on Guiseppe Sinigaglia and his rivalry and friendship with Wally Kinnear (particularly at the Coupe des Nations d’Aviron in Paris between 1912 and 1914), I remembered a picture archive first noted on HTBS by Hélène Rémond. The Gallica Digital Library is part of the National Library of France. Type in ‘aviron’ (rowing) and all sorts of goodies appear. The pictures can be viewed in fantastic detail as they were originally shot on large format ‘plate’ cameras and have been scanned in very high resolution. To enlarge, initially click on the magnifying glass symbol on the top left and then, in the new window, click on the magnifying glass with the plus sign on the top right.

I found a very nice picture of Sinigaglia posing in his boat at the 1913 European Championships and another of him racing on the on the Grand Terneuzen Canel on the same day.

It was also interesting to find a previously unknown picture of Wally Kinnear at the 1913 Coupe des Nations. It had been wrongly labelled as ‘the English rower Pettmann’, instead of ‘the Scottish sculler Kinnear’.

Not all the pictures are of Frenchmen. Here are two World Champions, on the left Darcy Hadfield of New Zealand, then still an amateur, and on the right, the professional sculler Ernest Barry of Great Britain.

Here is a selection of my favourite faces from the archive, chosen on character rather than rowing achievements: Gaston Delaplane photographed in July 1911; The aristocratic looking Anatol Peresselenzeff, posing in August 1913. He was a man with French and Russian connections who also sculled for Thames Rowing Club in London; I do not know who Monsieur Pichard was but I suspect that he enjoyed his sculling. A rare unposed picture; M. Horodinsky was probably tough opposition; It looks as though the stylish M. Cheval is patiently awaiting the invention of lycra.

C’est Magnifique.

Listomania

Would 'Muttle' make The List?

What do you think of when you hear ‘rowing list’? Maybe you are thinking of Megan Kalmoe’s ‘Hot List’, or one of the lists of rowers that sometimes pop up on FISA’s website? I had not really considered to post a list of rowers on HTBS, as I have been happy to occasionally post entries on some of my ‘rowing heroes’. But a week ago, I received an e-mail from my HTBS colleague Tim Koch in London. Tim had got an e-mail from David Brooks, a Brit living in the USA. David, who calls himself an ‘amateur sports historian’, was interested in getting information about some British oarsmen to be able to put together what he calls ‘an all-time British rowing squad.’

Both Tim and I thought that it sounded like a good idea for a discussion on HTBS. Tim immediately threw in five names: Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, Jack Beresford Jnr., Guy Nickalls, and the professional sculler Ernest Barry. Tim also mentions one of his (and mine) rowing heroes, Wally Kinnear, as someone who might be on a ‘scullers’ list’ with Barry.

I also contacted some rowing historians to see whom they might like to have on their ‘Top Ten British Rowers List’. There I run into problems. You see, they do not ‘do’ lists. However, they were happy to drop some names. Peter Mallory, author of the four-volume, 2,500-page, The Sport of Rowing (2011), mentions: Stanley Muttlebury, Beresford Snr., and Ran Laurie. ‘Beresford Jr. could row lightweight for sure. And don’t forget Mark Hunter [who is featured in the current issue of Rowing & Regatta, May 2012]. I’m not too impressed with British professionals beyond Ernie and perhaps Bert Barry,’ Peter writes. He also mentions ‘the Old Crocks’, the Leander eight that took gold at the Olympic regatta in 1908.

Well-known rowing historian Tom Weil writes:

‘Two scullers of y’oar who merit very serious consideration are A.A. Casamajor and F.S. Kelly, each a giant of his era. By his death at 28 (3 days before the 1861 Wingfields), Casamajor had won the Diamonds in 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 and 1861, and the Wingfields in 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, and 1860 (as well as the Goblets in 1855, 1856, 1858, and 1860, the Stewards in 1856, the Wyfolds in 1856, and the Grand in 1857 and 1859).  This records includes multiple Henley victories in each of the 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 regattas.

‘Kelly (who was born in Australia, but spent his entire rowing career in England, starting with stroking Eton to the Ladies’ in 1899) won the Diamonds in 1902, 1903 (over Beresford Sr) and 1905, and the Wingfields in 1903 (as well as the Stewards in 1906, the Grand in 1903, 1904, and 1905, and gold in the UK eight in the 1908 Olympics [‘the Old Crocks’]). Kelly’s Diamonds time stood for 30+ years before beaten by Joe Burk. Kelly also died young, a casualty of WWI.’

Albert de Laud Long

Another HTBS colleague, Greg Denieffe, writes, ‘I’m no great fan of ‘listomania’ but that’s because I’m no good at them!’ However, Greg drops a name:

‘One person that I would put forward,’ Greg writes, ‘to be on an overall top 10 sweep list would be Albert de Laud Long. A Wingfield Sculls winner in 1869 and again in 1870 he won a staggering 18 trophies at Henley between 1868 and 1877. Five times a Grand winner, eight Stewards’ wins, four in the Goblets and a win in the Coxless fours of 1872. He was also in the London R.C. crew in the “1872 Anglo-American Boat-Race,” in which London R.C. beat Atalanta B.C. of New York from Mortlake to Putney.’

Tomorrow, HTBS will present David Brooks’s ‘all-time British rowing squad’, and some ‘rules’ for those of you who would like to contribute with your own ‘Top Ten British Rowers List’, or should I say ‘lists’ as there is going to be more than one.

Facts About Wally...

Two great scullers, Ernest Barry and Wally Kinnear

The other day, someone left a comment on an old entry about William ‘Wally’ Kinnear of Kensington Rowing Club, who hundred years ago became Olympic champion in the single sculls at the Stockholm Games. The question is short: ‘Does anyone know how tall Wally was and what he weighed at his peak?’

The question goes to HTBS’s Tim Koch, rowing historian and member of Auriol Kensington RC in London. Tim, who right now is doing research and will produce a 5,000 word piece about Wally in time for the centenary of his Olympic win, writes,

Wally’s weights given in the Henley programmes were 12 stone 10 pounds for 1910 and 12 6 for 1911 and 12 5 for 1912. I do not think he was much over 6 foot (his oldest son was 6'4''). I have downloaded WDK’s Service Record from the First World War. As he was 36 when he enlisted in 1916, he served in England as a lorry driver for the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1918 the RNAS was amalgamated with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. Thus he served with the Royal Navy and the RAF. The record says height - 6 foot and 1/2 inch, chest - 40 inches (not big!), hair - brown, eyes - blue, complexion - fresh. The attached picture above shows that he did not possess the biggest legs that sculling has ever seen.

Tim Koch: Four Famous Scullers 1931 New Year's Greetings

A Happy New Year from the four greatest scullers of their age!

Caricatures from a 1931 report on a Christmas / New Year Dinner for some of the most popular sportsmen of the day. In those days, top scullers were well known public figures and references to 'The Diamonds' needed no explanation!

It’s Movember – Grow A Mo!

So, you think it’s November? Well, you are wrong, it’s Movember. What is Movember you ask? Movember - ‘celebration of the moustache’ - is a global campaign to raise funds for men’s health, and in some countries, like the UK, the campaign is mainly concentrating on raising funds to fight prostate and testicular cancer. So on 1 Movember/November many men around the world sign up with a clean-shaven face at www.movember.com to raise money for this campaign, promising not to shave during the whole month: Grow a Mo!

British Rowing and many of its rowers, both men and women, ‘Mo Bros’ and ‘Mo Sisters’ (of course, the later with a fake or painted moustache), are participating in this month-long event. Last year, £11.7 million was raised around the UK alone, British Rowing's magazine Rowing & Regatta writes in its latest issue.

To actually find a famous British oarsman with a really good looking ‘Mo’, I had to go back in time, to two of the most well-known oarsmen of their time: Ernest Barry and Harry Blackstaffe, two handsome chaps. In the photograph on top, Barry, in the bow-seat, was the professional world champion in 1912, and Blackstaffe, in the stroke-seat, was Olympic champion in the single sculls in 1908. Between them, their clean-shaved friend Wally Kinnear, Olympic champion in the single in 1912.

Although, I wholeheartedly support a campaign like this, my dear wife, Mrs. B., made it clear already when we dated (in Wales, as a matter of fact) in the 1990s that our relationship would never last if I grow a moustache, or any other facial hair. Then, on top of that, a couple of years ago, our cute children could not stop laughing when I showed them my old Swedish drivers license from the beginning of the 1980s showing me with my elegant ‘Mo’.

But to you who are allowed: Grow and Groom!

Roll Those Reels...

HTBS has often use newsreels from British Pathé, which actually was founded as Société Pathé Frères in Paris in the 1890s, to show old crews of Oxford and Cambridge practicing or racing, and when the professional scullers were battling for a championship, and sometimes an oddity like girls rowing on a roof top or London RC doing their 'jazz rowing'. Whether you are a rower or not, British Pathé's treasure trove has something for everyone.

Right now BBC Four is showing a documentary series about the company, The Story of British Pathé. The first programme was shown on 18 August, "The Birth of the News", and three more programmes are to follow. Read more about the series here. (Unfortunately, the iPlayer do not allow viewer outside Britain - or maybe outside of Europe - to watch). To read The Daily Telegraph's review of the first programme, please click here.

Of course, now I have to show a couple of newsreels. I have picked two which show the same rowing 'oddity' (but it is still rowing!), gondolas, which has two 'celebrety' gondolier, Ernest Barry (in 1921) and Humphrey Bogart (in 1951)!

ACTION!!!

VENICE ON THAMES

VENICE

Defeated Champions In 1919

The year 1919 seems to have been a bad year for some British sport Champions, if one is to believe Tom Webster's cartoon on top. Webster had earlier that year made a cartoon about how Ernest Barry had lost the World Professional Sculling Championship title to Alf Felton (see HTBS's "Felton Beats Barry In 1919, on 4 March, 2011 - where you will also find more information about Tom Webster).

In the cartoon above, "Our Defeated Champions", Webster is mocking Ernest Barry, on the right, and four famous British boxers at the time, from the left: Jim Driscoll, featherweight; Walter Ross, bantamweight; Joe Beckett, heavyweight; and Jimmy Wilde, flyweight. The ex-champions are singing: "We are but little children weak", and Webster's comment: "Sung with great success by the British Quintette".

At least Barry would take back the title the following year, 1920. I do not know if any of the boxers in the cartoon ever were able to reclaim the Championship title in their classes. It might interest you readers to know that some of the watermen on the Thames, and Doggett's Coat and Badge winners, were also making money in prize fights.

A Rower From Tai Tapu!

As a postscript to the entry about the Felton-Barry race in 1919, on 4 March, Bernard Hempseed writes:

When Barry beat Felton in the return match in Sydney it was a chance for Dick Arnst (seen on the left). Arnst had issue a newspaper challenge to the winner of the match (a possibly unusual way of going about it). Barry returned to the UK and ignored Dick so Arnst claimed the World Championship by default after the usual three months had passed. Arnst had been an earlier world champion so it was not exactly out of the blue but a few of the Sydnesiders did not agree with it. Anyway, Dick held on to the championship for another challenge before losing to fellow New Zealander Darcy Hadfield who had won bronze at the 1920 Olympic Games. Arnst was born not far from where I live and he was the first rower I wrote a book about as no-one had done it before. [Book title: Richard Arnst: The Single Sculls World Champion From New Zealand (2005)]

Richard (Dick) Arnst was born in a town near Christchurch called Tai Tapu on the 28th of November 1883. His birth name was Jacob Diedrich Arnst. It seems that the children selected another name to be known as when they grew up. Also, as Arnst was a German name they may have wanted to Anglicize it. However, Dick’s brother, Jack, was in the NZ Army and was killed in France in WWI. Dick was a champion cyclist (as was Jack) before he took up sculling. See Wiki for more information.

As for me, I was born in Christchurch and have lived all my live here. Boringly conventional!

Warm thanks to Bernard for this story. It is good to hear that Bernard is as cheerful as ever, despite the disaster that struck his hometown some weeks ago. Keep up the good spirit!

Felton Beats Barry In 1919

On 27 October 1919, for £500 a-side, World Champion sculler Ernest Barry lost his title to the Australian Alfred Felton on the championship course between Putney and Mortlake. This was captured by Tom Webster, who was a cartoonist at the Daily Mail (see above and below). Almost a year later, 28 August, 1920, Barry took back the Champion title from Felton on the Parramatta River. Barry's trip to Australia to regain the World title was made possible thanks to Webster's newspaper. The Daily Mail started a public subscription to fund the Englishman's voyage, which was going to cost £2,000 (£500 stake money and £1,500 for expenses). In his Sculling and Skulduggery Stuart Ripley claims that more than 100,000 people lined the Parramatta River for the race. After the race Barry retired from professional sculling.

"It's nothing of the sort. It's tails". (Felton says) Ernest Barry may know a lot about the Thames but he doesn't know a great deal about tossing.

Choosing the Middlesex side Felton went along in water that would not have disconcerted a really reckless sardine.

But Barry on the Surrey side was requiring something slightly superior to a "hush hush" ship in order to weather the storm.

The race was followed by a keen crowd on the banks - all shouting for Barry and some of them were kind enough to point out the winning post!

The chase was abandoned at Chiswick. The onlookers by that time being convinced that Britain no longer rules the waves.

Australian soldiers following the race. Twickenham spectator marked with a cross.

During the first mile the crew of Barry's cutter sank and I didn't see one of them wave him farewell.

A sporting finish. Barry sculls over to congratulate the winner.

The 'Last Hurrah'

Regarding my entry on 17 March, the always alert Tim Koch in London has sent me an e-mail with some thoughts about Ernest Barry, Bert Barry, and the World Professional Sculling Championship. Tim writes,

“The wonderful photograph of Ernest Barry (1882-1968) arriving at Putney in July 1913 to race Harry Pearce of Australia for the Sculling Championship of the World tells us a lot about professional sculling at that time. Firstly, Barry needed a police escort through the crowds because the sport had such a popular following. Before 1914 the ‘Big Five’ sports in Britain were soccer, rugby, cricket, boxing and rowing. It must be admitted that much of the interest may have been due to the betting that took place. Sadly this race was almost the ‘last hurrah’ of professional sculling as it never fully recovered its former mass appeal following the 1914-1918 War.”

Tim continues, “Secondly, Barry is clearly very well dressed and a bit of a ‘swell’ as they would say at the time. The classic way for a working class lad to make big money quickly (and spend it on ‘bling’) was, and probably is, to do well in sport or show business. What does the £500 prize money translate as today? According to the Nation Archives website, its spending worth would be £21,530 ($33,046) now. MeasuringWorth.com takes a different comparison, that of average earnings, and says that earning £500 then is equal to receiving £189,000 ($290,000) now.”

The next race for Barry was against another Australian, Jim Paddon, also on the Championship course between Putney and Mortlake, on 7 September 1914. Barry won at 21 min. 28 sec. The next person to challenge Barry for the title was Alf Felton of Australia (seen on the right), on 27 October 1919. About this race, Tim notes down “There is nice film on British Pathé of Barry racing Felton at Putney in October 1919. At twenty seconds into the film we see the two walk out, Felton wrapped in a mackintosh but Barry in white shoes, flannels and ascot with cap and blazer. Clearly he is a bit of a showman. There is an interesting shot two minutes into the film which shows an eight following one of the scullers in the race, but the bowman is not rowing and is facing the wrong way. He is (quite legally) coaching and steering the competitor. Fenton won.”

WORLD'S SCULLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Parts of the Felton - Barry rematch on the Parramatta River in Australia on 31 August 1920, which Barry won, can be viewed on the following newsreel:

BARRY WINS WORLD SCLLING CHAMPIONSHIP

Tim continues, “The £2,000 that Barry needed for travel and stake-money was raised very quickly by public subscription, such was the interest. Those interested in history always like the idea of continuity so it is pleasing to note that Ernest’s nephew, Bert, was World Champion 1927-1930 and that a Barry continues to be at the forefront of modern sculling. Ernest’s great-nephew, Bill, won Silver in the Coxless Four at the 1964 Olympics and won the Wingfield Sculls 1963-1966. Today he coaches British Olympic sculler, Alan Campbell.”

Great stuff, Tim. Thank you!

A Gentleman On The Towpath

Have a look at this wonderful photograph. A world champion has arrived on the towpath at Putney and is getting a grand escort by mounted police. The date is 21 July 1913, and the gentleman is none other than Ernest Barry, the reigning world professional sculling champion. The previous year, in October, Barry had defended his title on the Championship course, between Putney and Mortlake on the Thames, when E. Durnan of Toronto had challenged him for the title. This year, 1913, Harry Pearce of Australia is eager to have a go for the title, and for £500 aside. It is the second time Pearce is sculling for the world title. Almost exact two years earlier, on 29 July 1911, he had challenged Richard Arnst of New Zealand. They sculled on the Parramatta River, and Pearce did not have a chance against the stronger New Zealander.

There was a great interest among the Londoners in July 1913 to see if Barry could preserve the title, or if it would go abroad. The big sport paper of that day, The Sportsman, had a preview of the race that took up three whole columns. So how did it go? Well, Ernest Barry beat Harry Pearce on the Champion course, winning at 24 min. 9 sec.

Harry’s son, Bobby Pearce, would, twenty years later in 1933, take the Championship title from Ted Phelps. Bobby Pearce had begun his sculling career as an amateur, taking two Olympic gold medals in the single in 1928 and 1932, and the Diamonds at Henley in 1931.

A Rowing Treasure Chest

Earlier today, when I was looking around on the web for information about some professional sculling races, I stumbled over a real gem, or maybe I should call it a treasure chest filled with rowing jewels. On the web site British Pathé – britishpathe.com – which is said to be the “world’s first digital news archive” with 3,500 hours of video and 12 million stills, you will find tons of black & white, but also colour, videos of rowing and sculling from the early 1900s to the 1970s.

Among other things you will find the Thomas Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race, Henley Royal Regatta, the Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge (and each crew in training), early films of women rowing and racing, the European Championships, World [Professional] Championships and how some of the World Champions are training and their different rowing styles. (Search for ‘Ernest Barry’ [see picture above], ‘Bert Barry’, ‘Ted Phelps’, E.A. Phelps’, ‘R. Phelps’, and a real favourite ‘Phelps Family’, which shows the 1960 Doggett’s Race in colour, etc.)

What you will see are ‘previews’, which means that you can not download these videos, or link them, but I guess by contacting British Pathé you can get some kind of rights to download or buy the videos.

Now, if you are ready to spend hours in front of your computer screen, watching rowing, click here.

About Three Distinguished Oarsmen

Ernest Barry, Wally Kinnear, and Harry 'Blackie' Blackstaffe

Slightly more than five months ago, I started the blog “Hear The Boat Sing” (after a phrase in Steve Fairbairn’s poem “The Oarsman’s Song”). In my first entry, on 12 March, I wrote that as there are not a lot of rowing magazines around, it is hard to get anything published, especially if it is related to the history of rowing.

Of course, that never stops me from trying! Some months back, I sent an article to Ms. Wendy Kewley, the editor of ARA’s fine magazine Rowing & Regatta, thinking that I should start by contacting the nicest rowing magazine there is, and then work my way down, so to say… It had worked well earlier once upon a time when I had written a couple of reviews of some rowing books. I then contacted the eminent British/American magazine Maritime Life and Traditions - nowadays sadly deceased - and the editor, Jenny Bennett, took the articles right away.

Well, the result of my latest attempt arrived in the mail yesterday, when the good mail man, in his stylish pith helmet, dropped off the latest issue of Rowing & Regatta, No. 37, August / September, 2009, in my mail box. There it was, my article “Three men in a boat” about Harry Blackstaffe, William D. Kinnear, and Ernest Barry in a triple scull, or as it is also called, a treble scull.

In the article, I wrote that the Olympic champions ‘Blackie’ Blackstaffe and ‘Wally’ Kinnear, and their friend, the professional champion Ernest Barry, were the most distinguished oarsmen of their time, during the 1900s and 1910s, and they were... Well, you can read it yourself in the magazine. If you are not subscribing to Rowing & Regatta, you can read more about the magazine, and maybe even subscribe to it, by clicking here.

With one article published, who knows what this can be the beginning of?

One of the Great Professional Scullers

Today it is exactly one month since I started this blog on rowing history. To celebrate this I am posting a rare photograph of the English professional sculler Ernest Barry, with his autograph. Ernest Barry (1882-1968) was a professional waterman who won the Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race in 1903 and took the British Championship title in 1908 by beating George Towns of Australia.

Two years later, Barry raced Dick Arnst of New Zealand for the World Professional Championships on the Zambezi River in South Africa. Arnst won the race, but two years later, on 29 July 1912, he lost the World title to Barry on the River Thames. Barry successfully defended the title three times before he lost it to Alf Felton of Sydney in 1919. A year later Barry regained the title from Felton and retired from professional sculling. In 1913, he had been appointed a Royal Waterman and in 1950 the Royal Barge Master to King George VI and later to Queen Elizabeth II. During several years, Ernest Barry was also coaching crews in Ireland, Germany, and Denmark.