British Empire Games Rowing in 1950

The combination of oarsmen from Leander and Thames RC represented England at the rowing regatta at the 1950 Empire Games: bow A.S.F. Butcher (Thames RC), 2. P.A de Giles (Leander), 3. W.A.D. Windham (Leander), 4. H.W. Rushmere (Thames RC), 5. R.D. Burnell (Leander), 6. P.C. Kirkpatrick (Thames RC), 7. M.C. Lapage (Leander), stroke P. Bradley (Leander) and cox J.P. Dearlove. Photograph by G.F. Louden (in Dickie Burnell's Swing Togther).

On 31 August, Tim Koch wrote on HTBS about Jack Dearlove, ‘The Indefatigable Jack Dearlove’. Jack, who had lost a leg in an accident, showed the same fighting spirit as today’s rowers at the Paralympic Games in London. Jack coxed the Great Britain eight to an Olympic silver medal in 1948 and a bronze medal at the Empire Games in 1950. This is a short story about the 1950 Empire Games’ rowing regatta on Lake Karapiro in New Zealand.

The first British Empire Games (now called the Commonwealth Games) were held in 1930 in Hamilton, Ontario, by, as Hylton Cleaver writes in his A History of Rowing (1957), “a group of keen sportsmen and great believers in the Empire”. That year’s winner of the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley, London RC, beat a strong eight from New Zealand by half a length. Bobby Pearce, then still sculling for Australia, became the first Empire Champion in the single sculls, beating Jack Beresford of Thames RC. There seems to have been an Empire Games in England in 1934, but without rowing! So, at the next Empire Games where rowing was included, in 1938, a combination eight of oarsmen from London, Thames, Oxford and Cambridge overpowered an eight from Australia. And then came the War.

After a successful race in the 1949 Grand Challenge Cup final at Henley Royal Regatta, Leander captain Richard ‘Dickie’ Burnell was asked to gather a crew for the British Empire Games, which were to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 1950. Knowing that not all of the members of the Grand Cup winning Leander crew would be available, Dickie began looking around for other ‘outstanding men elsewhere’, as he writes in “The Empire Games Crew, 1950”, which is a chapter in his book Swing Together: Thoughts on Rowing (1952). He did not have to look very far. In 1949, Thames RC had taken the Grand Cup at Henley, and some oarsmen from that crew were eager to swap out the English winter for a much warmer climate on the other side of the world.

In the beginning there had been 17 oarsmen invited to the practise, including also two each from London RC and Kingston RC, but on 23 October, 1949, the selected eight looked as follows:

Bow A.S.F. Butcher (Thames RC)
2. P.A de Giles (Leander)
3. W.A.D. Windham (Leander)
4. H.W. Rushmere (Thames RC)
5. R.D. Burnell (Leander)
6. P.C. Kirkpatrick (Thames RC)
7. M.C. Lapage (Leander)
Stroke P. Bradley (Leander)
Cox J.P. Dearlove (Thames RC)

Added to these nine men were two spare rowers: A.D. Rowe (Leander; who was also in the single sculls) and M.H.N. Plaisted (London RC). Team Manager during the trip was Jack Beresford.

At first, the crew had been coached by Wing Commander Hellyer – of ‘syncopated rowing’ fame – but his doctor put a stop to him participating in winter coaching, and instead ‘Gully’ Nickalls stepped in to coach the eight. Dickie writes that Nickalls’s approach to coaching a crew was, ‘that a crew should first achieve a true rhythm and length in its paddling, and then translate this into its rowing’. However, Dickie states there was not really the time to work this way. He writes:

‘A certain amount of speed has got to be achieved in order to race, and if a crew is held back in order to perfect its length and rhythm in paddling, there is a distinct danger that it will not be ready in time to race. […] When we left England our paddling was really good, and on numerous occasions we disappointed the critics by paddling beautifully and then becoming rushed and scrappy in our rowing.’

The 1950 Great Britain Empire Game crew. Dickie Burnell, sixth from left in a dark scarf, kept a ‘captain’s log’ during the crew's practise in England and later on Lake Karapiro. Picture © John Dearlove.

Dickie kept a ‘captain’s log’ during the crew’s practise at Henley, the trip to New Zealand and the practise there, and parts of it are published in “The Empire Games Crew, 1950”. The team left England on 23 January, 1950, and when they arrived they heard that their boat had not arrived yet, so they had to borrow an old Sims. The long trip took its toll on the English crew, who also had problems with the diet. Eventually, their own boat arrived and also the riggers. But at the race, on 6 February, it did not really help, ‘the race was naturally a bitter disappointment to us all’ Dickie states. The Aussies won – ‘they were strong and well together, and rowed in something very like our own English Fairbairn style’, Dickie writes.

In the Australian boat rowed: bow R.N. Tinning, 2. P.A. Cayzer, 3. A.P. Holmes, 4. B.H. Goswell, 5. R.L. Selman, 6. E.O. Longley, 7. E.O. Pain, stroke A.W. Brown and cox J.E. Barnes. New Zealand’s crew was young, a little inexperienced, but ‘exceptionally tough’ and had rowed on Lake Karapiro for several weeks. They raced hard and almost overcame the Aussies. New Zealand’s crew: bow E. Smith, 2. B. Culpan, 3. D. Rowlands, 4. G. Jarratt, 5. M. Ashby, 6. W. Tinnock, 7. K. Ashby, stroke T.C. Engel and cox D. Adams. English sculler A.D. Rowe came in second after M. Wood, the reigning Olympic Champion from Australia. The bronze in the single sculls was taken by I.R.G. Steven of South Africa. T. Hegglum of New Zealand came in fourth.

There were some lessons to be learned after the Englishmen’s trip to New Zealand, which Dickie also recognises in a follow-up chapter in his Swing Together.

More about the British Empire Games Rowing tomorrow, 7 September.

Two 1920 HRR Debutants

Although there had been a four-day regatta organised on the Henley Reach in 1919 - the Royal Henley Peace Regatta - it was never recognised as a real Henley Royal Regatta due to the fact that many oarsmen were still serving in the armed forces. Instead, the first official Henley Royal Regatta after the War, where the usual Henley trophies were presented, was in 1920.

Henley Stewards 1920 - click to enlarge

As a matter of curiosity, in my small collection of rowing memorabilia is a Henley Royal Regatta Programme for the regatta’s first day, Wednesday 30 June, 1920. The list of the Stewards is literally a list of famous oarsmen’s ‘Who is Who’ with names such as Desborough, Ampthill, Pitman, Lehmann, de Havilland, Rowe, Gold, Steward, and Burnell. It is also in this programme the rowing world for the first time would lay their eyes on the name of a 21-year-old who would bring glory to his club and country for decades to come: Jack Beresford Jr. of Thames RC, who was racing against The Hon. The Master of Gray of Viking RC, in the first heat of the Diamond Challenge Sculls, Beresford on the Berks side and Gray on the Bucks side. Beresford would eventually win the final of the Diamonds beating Donald Gollan, First Trinity, Cambridge by three lengths.

Gully Nickalls

There was another 21-year-old debutant at the 1920 Henley Royal who would do well and serve British rowing for decades to come, and he had, just as young Beresford, rowing in his blood as his father, too, was a well-known oarsman. Of course, I am referring to Guy Oliver ‘Gully’ Nickalls, who rowed for Magdalen College, Oxford, both in the college’s eight in the Grand Challenge Cup and in the Silver Goblets & Nickalls’ Challenge Cup (coxless pair, with Richard Lucas). Magdalen won the Grand by beating Leander by two lengths, and Nickalls and Lucas won the Silver Goblet by easily over-powering a crew from Thames RC with Ian Fairbairn (son of Steve Fairbairn) and Bruce Logan. It is noteworthy that Gully’s victory in the Silver Goblets marked the twelfth triumph in this event for a member of the Nickalls family.

Both Beresford and Nickalls would later in 1920 take two silver medals in the Olympic Games in Antwerp, Beresford in the single and Nickalls as a member of the British eight.

Agreeing With 'Gully'...

In an e-mail from London, Tim Koch writes about the latest book he has read:

I have just finished A Rainbow in the Sky, Reminiscences by G.O. ‘Gully’ Nickalls (Chatto and Windus, 1974). Guy Oliver Nickalls was, on both his mother’s and father’s side, from famous rowing stock. In the 1920s he rowed in two Olympic Games and won three Henley medals. In the 1950s he was Chairman of the Amateur Rowing Association. Like his father’s autobiography (Life’s a Pudding, Guy Nickalls) Rainbow gives the impression that, in the first half of the last century, the privileged classes seemed to drift through life occasionally performing duties and obligations but generally having a thoroughly nice time. The book is an enjoyable (if eclectic) collection of stories and thoughts with surprisingly few references to rowing. One of these rowing references is, however, delightful:

“…I derived the utmost joy from my rowing. Not in any masochistic sense but in so many positive ways. The assuaging of a burning thirst; the satisfying of a giant appetite; the comfortable tiredness that presages a good night’s sleep; the camaraderie of friends all set on the same objective. These things I loved. Then there was the wonderful feeling of fitness, the unleashing of a strength that seemed boundless, and those wonderful days when the crew’s improved technique brought a glorious response in the run and pace of the boat…Those were moments that brought such rich rewards. Sometimes it would seem almost as though the boat were a live thing which with its own particular brand of joi de vivre, was joining in the frolic by skidding through the water of its own accord. Merely to glimpse these delights is something that makes rowing so very, very worthwhile”.

I am sure that anyone who has ever put any time and effort into rowing and has ‘glimpsed these delights’ will agree with Gully’s words, Tim writes.

I, myself, can only agree…

Footnote: The frontispiece in Rainbow shows a self-portrait of Gully Nickalls from c. 1935 (seen above). He called it 'Disagreeable Me'.