1898 Wingfields: ‘a most extraordinary contest’

The start at the 1898 Wingfields. Closes to the camera is Harry Blackstaffe (Vesta RC) and in the background his opponent, Hunting Howell (Trinity Hall).

It is 25 July, 1898, and the location is the River Thames above Putney Bridge. Harry Blackstaffe (Vesta RC), the holder of the Wingfield Sculls, the amateur championship of the Thames and Great Britain, is getting ready to defend his title against B. Hunting Howell (Trinity Hall, Cambridge), who three days earlier had won the trial heat by beating C. H. R. Thorn of London RC. The day before the trial heat, 21 July, Blackstaffe had taken the London Cup at the Metropolitan Regatta. The previous year, Blackstaffe had easily won his first Wingfields in 23 minutes 58 seconds, four lengths in front of Howell, who was six lengths ahead of A. F. G. Everitt (London RC).

In the photograph on top, Blackstaffe is closest to the camera and in between the stake boats we can see the Vesta oarsman’s pilot boat, an eight, getting ready to follow their man and ‘pilot’ him the whole championship course from Putney to the finish line at Mortlake. In the background are Howell and his pilot boat. As usual the pilot boats are missing their bow men, instead the ‘pilots’ have taken that seat and will face forward to guide their scullers over the course.

The race ‘produced a most extraordinary contest’ The Times wrote in a report the day after the race, on 26 July. Blackstaffe went out quickly at the start and got a good lead, while Howell, or as The Times wrote, ‘the Cantab’, was not used to the quick tide at Putney Bridge. At Putney Reach, Blackstaffe was two boat lengths ahead, which at the Mile Post had become three and a half lengths. Passing the Hammersmith Bridge, the Londoner’s time was 8 minutes 53 seconds while Howell’s was 9 minutes. At Barnes Bridge, Blackstaffe was four lengths in front. To the on-lookers, including the umpire Gilbert Kennedy of Kingston RC (winner of the 1893 Wingfields) on the paddle steamer that followed the race, it looked like the sculler from Vesta RC had the championship title in the bag.

With half a mile to go, Blackstaffe began to look a little unsteady in his boat and had a slight problem with his steering, but Howell was still three lengths down. Suddenly, the Hall man began a tremendous spurt, rapidly gaining on Blackstaffe, who could not respond and was ‘quickly failing in strength’. All of a sudden, the Vesta man stopped rowing with 50 yards to go, totally exhausted. Howell passed him, got a couple of lengths lead, and stopped rowing, too, all pumped out. Nonetheless, the speed of his boat took him over the finish line in the new record time of 22 minutes 57 seconds. This was the second time a Trinity Hall man had won the Wingfields. The first one was James Bayford, who was the first winner of the Henry Wingfield’s Silver Sculls in 1830. James’s brother, Augustus Fredrick Bayford, who also rowed for the Hall, was in the first Cambridge crew in the Boat Race in 1829.

Another F. S. Kelly ‘Henley Prize’ went under the Hammer

F. S. Kelly

Greg Denieffe writes:

A new Sporting Memorabilia sale by Graham Budd Auctions took place in Sotheby’s, 34-35 New Bond Street, London, on 5 and 6 November. The full catalogue is online and as in recent sales, there were a few lots (240-245) of interest to collectors of rowing memorabilia. Undoubtedly, the star ‘rowing’ item was a Ladies’ Plate Medal won by F. S. Kelly in 1899.

Lot 240

A Henley Regatta prize medal for the Ladies Challenge Cup in 1899 won by Frederick Septimus Kelly, the Eton College Stroke, the rim named to F.S. KELLY. F.S. Kelly later rowed for Oxford and Leander and won a gold medal at the 1908 Olympic Games as a member of the coxed eight. By profession he was a musician and composer. Having survived Gallipoli, Kelly was killed in action in the last days of the Battle of the Somme. Estimate: £300 - £500

Sold for £240 (plus commission, 17,5 %)

Early in 2012, HTBS reported that Kelly’s Pineapple Cup sold at Bonhams for £3,800. This was his prize for winning the 1905 Diamond Challenge Sculls, his third victory in four years. His first win in the Diamonds was for Balliol College, Oxford, when he won in 1902 beating Raymond Etherington-Smith in the final. Balliol College has the sculls in their historic collections centre in St Cross Church. The following year, sculling for Leander Club, he retained his title beating Julius Beresford, and in 1905 he defeated Harry Blackstaffe. Not to be outdone, the River and Rowing Museumin Henley has a 1905 scull in their collection.

Kelly, a New South Welshman by birth – his father was Irish – also won The Grand Challenge Cup at Henley three times in succession (1903-1906), The Stewards’ Challenge Cup in 1906 and a gold medal for Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics in the eights. He is remembered on the Bisham War Memorial.

Two other lots caught my eye:

Lot 244

Rowing programmes, Durham Regatta 22.6.1938; Maidenhead Amateur Regatta 3.8.1929; Henley Royal Regatta 2.7.38 & 5.7.52; Oxford University Summer Eights 26.5.1936, 22.5.1937 & 24.5.46; Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race 30.3.1946; Oxford University Torpids’ Race Card 21.2.1939; the lot also including a 12-page booklet Henley 1839, red cloth boards; and an Ouse Amateur Sailing Club Regatta at Denver (11). Estimate: £130 - £160

Sold for £110 +

A very diverse collection that would probably do well on eBay split into individual lots. The Henley booklet is rather grand considering it only consists of 12 pages.

Lot 245

A portrait of the British rower Tony Butcher by an unknown hand, oil on canvas, 68.5 by 53cm., 27 by 21in., framed. Estimate: £200 - £300

Sold for £150+

I like the composition of this portrait. The decorated oars are clearly important mementos of a rowing career that saw victory in the 1947 University Boat Race (Cambridge) and The Grand Challenge Cup in 1948 (Thames Rowing Club) and participation in the 1948 Olympic Games (Great Britain 4-).

My first thought on seeing this picture was that Cyril Bird would have enjoyed it. He used the pen name ‘Fougasse’ and in 1948 had a cartoon published in Punch with the caption "Yes, I did row a little at one time – why, how did you discover that?"  Perhaps Oscar Wilde was right, when he opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”.

The other rowing related lots sold for:
241 sold for £160+
242 sold for £240+
243 sold for £100+

All but Lot 245 sold to room bidders.

The 1897 Diamond Challenge Sculls

Artist Henry Charles Seppings Wright gave this view from the Grosvenor Club Enclosure (later to be The Remenham Club) of the final of the 1897 Diamond Challenge Sculls between Harry Blackstaffe (on the Bucks side) and Ned Hanlan Ten Eyck (on the Berks side) in The Illustrated London News, 24 July, 1897. St Mary’s Church is a well-recognised land mark in the background. Like many other images on rowing and boat racing, this is featuring the spectators and the liveliness on the riverbank, while the race is a secondary event in the background.

Three American scullers competed for the 1897 Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta. In his first heat, W.S. McDowell of Delaware BC easily defeated the Hon. Rupert Guinness, who sculled for Thames RC that year. The previous two years Guinness had won the Diamonds, but then in the colours of Leander. The second American was Hunting Howell, who could not really be counted as an American, despite that he was from New York. Howell sculled for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and it was first when he was admitted to ‘the Hall’ in 1894 that he had taken up the oar. Howell had a lucky draw and had his first heat in the ‘quarterfinal’ where he met G. McHenry of Thames RC. McHenry had sculled in the Diamonds before, in 1892 for a Paris club, and in 1893 in the colours of Thames RC. Hunting did not have any problems winning his first race in the Diamonds. In his next heat, he was to race against his countryman from Massachusetts, Edward ‘Ned’ Hanlan Ten Eyck, named after the Canadian world professional sculling champion, who was his god father. Ten Eyck of Wachusett BC, who was four years Hunting’s junior, had been allowed to enter the Diamonds despite the Henley Stewards suspicion that he was a professional. This assumption was mainly based on his coach, his father James Ten Eyck, who was a well-known professional oarsman.

Hunting Howell

At this time, there was a growing irritation among certain men in the English rowing establishment about having American oarsmen to compete at Henley. There was no way for the Henley Stewards to do a ‘background check’ if the American oarsmen racing at Henley were real amateurs, or if they were semi-professionals, or even full-time professionals. Nevertheless, this did not affect or relate to Howell. In his case it was different, as he was sculling in the black and white colours of a well-respected Cambridge college. He was thereby molded in the proper English way.

Harry Blackstaffe

The American Trinity Hall man rowed a great race, but at the end, Ten Eyck beat him, but only by a quarter of a length. In the final, in a new record time, 8 minutes 35 seconds, Ten Eyck easily defeated Harry Blackstaffe of Vesta RC who sculled in his first final of the Diamonds. Even Blackstaffe, whose friends called him ‘Blackie’, had in the beginning of his rowing career had difficulty being regarded as an amateur as he was working in the meat trade. Before the winning ceremony, some of Blackie’s friends urged him to protest the result as Ten Eyck was, in their eyes, a professional. Blackie refused as he saw a protest as an unsportsmanlike gesture.

To celebrate his victory, poor Ten Eyck did everything wrong, at least in the eyes of the English rowing press. He and his father ‘attended a dinner given in honour of himself and his father at the Half Moon at Putney by all the best known English professionals’, Geoffrey Page writes in Hear the Boat Sing: The History of Thames Rowing Club and Tideway Rowing (1991), and continues, ‘This surely was an open confession of guilt.’

In the 1898 issue of the Rowing Almanack and Oarsman’s Companion, its editor Edwin D. Brickwood, signature ‘Argonaut’ (Diamonds winner in 1859 and 1862), reflected on the passed rowing season, when he wrote about Ned Ten Eyck: ‘the very strong presumption from his parentage, his associations, and his appearance, that he was by no means of the British type of amateur, still less a gentleman amateur.’ In his article Brickwood mentioned all the professionals who were present at Ten Eyck’s celebration banquet at the Half Moon: the boat builders John H. Clasper, George Sims and W. Winship, and the famous oarsmen Tom Sullivan, Bill Barry, Charles ‘Wag’ Harding, Bill East and twenty others. Brickwood sourly rounded it up with a Latin phrase: Noscilu e sociis – ‘It is known from its associates’.

For the 1898 Henley Royal Regatta, the Stewards turned down Ten Eyck’s application to defend his title in the Diamonds.

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!

Julian Grenfell: Oarsman, Poet, Soldier

During Remembrance Week in the U.K., which has just passed, among the poems that are read you will find the famous ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae, but rarely Julian Grenfell’s ‘Into Battle’, which nowadays is totally ignored, although it can still be found in anthologies of war poetry. The two first stanzas of ‘Into Battle’ read:

The naked earth is warm with spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun’s gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And life is colour and warmth and light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.


The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest and fullness after dearth.

The problem that scholars and ordinary readers of poetry have these days with Grenfell is also what he wrote in a letter in October 1914 about the Great War: “I adore war. It is like a big picnic but without the objectivelessness of a picnic. I have never been more well or more happy.” Seven months later, on 13 May 1915, Grenfell was wounded by a shell-splinter. He died on 26 May with his parents and his sister Monica at his bedside. The following day, his poem ‘Into Battle’ was published in The Times together with the announcement of his death. Two months later, on 30 July, Julian’s younger brother Billy was killed in action one mile away from where Julian had been wounded.

Julian Grenfell, who was born on 30 March 1888, was the eldest son of William Henry Grenfell (on the left) later Lord Desborough, a famous oarsman and sportsman. Julian was educated at Eton and then went up to Balliol College, Oxford, where he proved to be a happy-go-lucky chap, who excelled at writing poetry and essays, and at different sports, including rowing. It is said that he was a ‘golden boy’ who socialised with friends and dons alike, but also that he could be a bully. However, at the end of his studies Julian had a breakdown, which led to a poor degree. After Oxford, he joined the 1st Royal Dragoons, stationed in India and later South Africa.

The information about his rowing career at Balliol College is sparse, and if you find any it is confusing: “[Julian was] rowing in the college eight, which won the Wyfold cup at Henley in 1909”. At the time when Julian was rowing, the Wyfold Challenge Cup at Henley was rowed in coxless fours. Looking into if he was in fact rowing at Henley in 1909, Sir Theodore Cook shed some light in his Henley Races (1919). Julian’s Balliol four rowed in the second heat of the Visitors’ Challenge Cup against First Trinity, Cambridge. The Balliol crew, which was stroked and steered by M.B. Higgins, had problems with their course and went into the piles within their first rowed minute. First Trinity was already far ahead, when the Balliol boat got clear. However, the Oxford crew continued to steer badly and came over to the Berks station. The Cambridge crew won easily in 8 min. 4 sec.

Harry Blackstaffe of Vesta RC

The Balliol crew was also rowing in the Wyfold Challenge Cup, where the crew – in addition to Julian in the bow-seat and Higgins on stroke were V.A Barrington-Kennett in second-seat and J.W. Heinemann in third-seat – did not have any difficulties defeating Vestra RC; on the second-seat in the metropolitan crew was the 40-year-old veteran Harry Blackstaffe, who the previous year had become the Olympic champion in the single sculls. In their next heat, the Balliol crew, although again steering poorly, managed to get a lead at the Island against Molesey BC. At Fawley, the Oxford boat had a lead of a length and a half and won easily in 8 min. 3 sec. In the final heat, Balliol met another Oxford college crew, Christ Church. Both boats got a good start and were level at the quarter-mile post. At one point, Balliol was close to the booms, but was quickly back on the right course. At Fawley, both crews were in midstream, almost clashing oars. “The race was a good one to watch, the crews being dead level at the three-quarter-mile signal”, Sir Theodore writes. When Balliol put on a spurt, Christ Church tried to follow, but made some steering errors which led to falling behind and getting Balliol’s wash. Having another race later in the day, Christ Church gave up, and Balliol won easily in 7 min. 44 sec.

After joining the Army, Julian continued to write poems. In the summer of 1914, he was toying with the idea of leaving the Army, but when the war broke out in August the same year, he decided to stay and two months later he was in France. Julian was promoted to the rank of Captain, was mentioned in dispatches, and won the DSO. He declined a job as aide-de-camp as his regiment was short of front-line officers. From his hands came a light poem, ‘Prayer for Those on the Staff’ which reveals his humour:

Fighting in mud, we turn to Thee
In these dread times of battle, Lord,
To keep us safe, if so may be,
From shrapnel snipers, shell and sword.

Yet not on us - (for we are men
Of meaner clay, who fight in clay) -
But on the Staff, the Upper Ten,
Depends the issue of the day.

The Staff is working with its brains
While we are sitting in the trench;
The Staff the universe ordains
(Subject to Thee and General French).

God, help the Staff - especially
The young ones, many of them sprung
From our high aristocracy;
Their task is hard, and they are young.

O lord, who mad’st all things to be
And madest some things very good
Please keep the extra ADC
From horrid scenes, and sights of blood...

He was buried in the military cemetery on the hills above Boulogne in France. Go to Julian Grenfell’s War Diary here. See also HTBS's War Memorials.

This post was updated on 22 May 2014 to reflect the information in Comment 1.

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!

R&R Gets New Look!

On Saturday, the latest issue of the eminent magazine Rowing & Regatta arrived in the mail. Rowing & Regatta, R&R for short, is published by British Rowing and has the competent Wendy Kewley at the helm. I was eagerly awaiting this issue as Editor Kewley had sent me an e-mail telling me about the magazine's new lay-out.

"I say", as Bertie Wooster probably would have exclaimed, "it's looking jolly good". I was happy to see that "the coloured plates" with texts were gone. Although, I don't have the problem, I understand that some people might have a hard time reading for example a white text on a light blue background. Now it is what all magazines used to have: black text on white or light grey background - so, bravo, I say! With this issue starts a 2012 countdown for the coming Olympics in London next year, and over-all the magqazine looks very promising.

I have to mention that even my little column, "In this month", looks lovely. It somehow looks shorter than before, though, but it's the same length, 400 words. I was also very happy to see that HTBS was mentioned in an article by Mike Rowbottom, who always writes nice stuff. This time, he is writing about the famous Vesta oarsman, Harry Blackstaffe, 'Blackie', who became Olympic champion in the single sculls in 1908, 40 years old! Rowbottom is writing about the photograph on the left which was figured in a HTBS entry on 18 April, 2010 (see also 20 April, 2010).

Good Luck with the new look of R&R!

The Story Of Wally Kinnear, Or ‘Not Tonight...’

One of Great Britain's finest scullers was W.D. Kinnear, who most of his rowing career rowed for Kensington Rowing Club. HTBS's Tim Koch of Auriol Kensington RC tells the story:

The recent HTBS posting, “A Daring German Rowing Book”, quoted a 1907 training manual as advising abstinence from sex in the run up to important regattas. This was not just one person’s eccentric idea. A few years ago I interviewed John Rogers who was Captain of Kensington Rowing Club from 1954 to 1964. He recalled someone that he had known well, Kensington’s most famous son, W.D. Kinnear, winner of the single sculls in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. It seemed that, in his coaching days following the 1914-1918 War:

“[Kinnear’s wife, Lillian] used to go around and tell all the wives that their husbands were in training - no sex! They were going to Henley Regatta, no sex. She would really lay the law down. It was one of the wives who told me this, she said that she put the fear of God into you.”

The picture above shows Wally, Lillian and one of their children in 1910. ‘WDK’ was then in strict training as he was nearing the peak of his sculling career so, presumably, the child was conceived in the winter.

Another one of Kinnear’s training methods relates to a recent HTBS posting on rowing and alcohol. A 1978 letter in the Auriol Kensington archive from John Rogers states:

“In 1912 [Kinnear] was unexpectedly beaten in the Diamond Sculls at Henley. He was over trained (preparing for the Stockholm Olympics in a few weeks time) and told me that part of the remedy for this was to drink ‘Black Velvet’, a mixture of Guinness and Champaign…”

William Duthie Kinnear (1880-1974) was born in Laurencekirk, Scotland. His family called him ‘Bill’ or ‘Billy’ but the rowing world was to call him ‘Wally’ or (inevitably) ‘Jock’. As a young man he went to London to make his career. In 1902 he obtained a post as a salesman for the Debenhams department store. As was common in those days of ‘jobs for life’ and paternalistic employers, the store had its own rowing club (‘Cavendish’) based at the ‘West End Amateur Rowing Association’ boathouse in Hammersmith, West London. This was home to many such clubs including one for the employees of Harrods store. Kinnear’s talent was soon obvious and he won the West End ARA Sculling Championship in 1903, 1904 and 1905. In 1905 he joined Kensington Rowing Club and was to remain a loyal member until his death 69 years later. He had many successes in regattas over the next few years but it was between 1910 and 1912 that he reached his peak. Some credit for this must go to his great friend and informal coach, Harry Blackstaffe, the 1908 Olympic Sculling Champion.

The ‘triple crown’ of sculling in those days was the ‘Diamond Sculls’ at Henley Royal Regatta, the ‘Wingfield Sculls’ (The English Amateur Championship), and the ‘London Cup’ at the Metropolitan Regatta. Wally won the Diamonds in 1910 (beating Rudolph Lucas of Mainzer Club, Germany, easily) and again in 1911 when he had a harder fight against Eric W. Powell. The Times newspaper called it ‘a splendid race and a fine exhibition of sculling’. In the Wingfield’s, Kinnear beat Robert C. Bourne in 1910, was unchallenged and sculled over in 1911 and beat E.D.P. Pinks in 1912. He won the London Cup in 1910 (beating R.C. Bourne) and again the following year.

By 1912 it was clear that Wally Kinnear was ‘world class’. Henley was the closest thing to a regular international competition that existed at the time but the (perhaps) lesser regarded Olympic Games was approaching. There had been four Games previously. In 1896 the rowing was cancelled due to bad weather. In Paris in 1900 there was a reasonable spread of wins among the entries in the Olympic Regatta but in St Louis in 1904 all the competitors were American (save for one Canadian eight) and in London in 1908 the British won most of the rowing medals. The 1912 Games was held in Stockholm, Sweden, and many regard it as the first truly modern Games. The IOC President from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage, is quoted in The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (by Allen Guttermann, 1992) as saying:

“The efficiency and almost mathematical precision with which the events were handled and the formal correctness of the arrangements made a great impression on me.”

In those days each country could enter two crews or scullers in each event. The Amateur Rowing Association chose Kinnear and A.G. McCulloch of Leander Club who had won the Diamonds in 1908 and came second in the Olympic Sculls in the same year. In the event, illness meant that McCulloch did not go to Stockholm.

What is particularly striking by modern standards is how informal the whole thing was. A letter from the ARA Secretary to the Kensington Secretary on 11th May 1912 (just over two months before the Olympic Regatta was due to be held on 18th and 19th July) says:

“I have already sent in an entry of two scullers, one of which will be W. Kinnear. The Swedish Committee are not asking for any names until July 1st. I will send W. Kinnear his entry forms early in June.

P.S.
As it will take some time for a racing boat to reach Stockholm, W. Kinnear may wish to have one sent out before he leaves England. He might perhaps like me to make arrangements with the Captain of Leander Club to have his boat sent out with the Leander eight. If so I will let you know dates etc early in June.”

In the event, Wally’s path to Olympic Gold was a fairly easy one. He beat Stahnke of Germany and then Veirman of Belgium. In the words of The Times, ‘there was no sculler who was able to make W.D. Kinnear extend himself’. This is not to take anything away from the Scotsman – great champions win before the final starts. Only four Britons have won world amateur single sculling titles: Blackstaffe of Vesta (1908 Olympics), Kinnear of Kensington (1912 Olympics), Beresford of Thames (1924 Olympics) and Haining of Auriol Kensington (1993, 1994, 1995 World Championships).

In his 1978 letter, John Rogers recalls that Wally had:

“[...] a very warm and endearing personality. He was always ready with a word of encouragement no matter how new or novice a member and was greatly loved and respected by all [… his rowing career) must have entailed a certain amount of hardship as he was not a rich man.”

Two stories illustrate the fact that WDK was a humble salesman mixing in a world of so called ‘gentlemen’. His great friend was a fanatical Kensington oarsman, George Newby, who was a much wealthier man. Wally was honoured when asked to be ‘best man’ at his wedding and so gave him the most valuable thing he owned – his 1910 Diamond Sculls ‘Pineapple Cup’ (ninety years later the Newby family donated the prized object to Auriol Kensington Rowing Club). As a prequel to that story, shortly after winning the Diamonds for the first time, Wally was asked by Debenhams if they could display the Cup in one of the store windows. In those days you did not refuse a ‘request’ from your employers and so he agreed. Many of the rowing establishment thought this was very vulgar and the story goes that Guy Nickalls snubbed him until he won the Olympic Sculls when he condescended to say ‘Well done, Kinnear’.

George Newby’s son, the travel writer Eric Newby, has slightly different memories of Wally:

“My father […] was an all round sportsman [... who] used to go down to Whitechapel to be ‘pummelled’ by pugilists in order to toughen himself up, and after vigorous outings on the Thames [...] used to bathe, winter and summer, in the [...] river [...] before setting off to work [...] His ambition was that I should win the Diamond Sculls at Henley, and in this ambition he was aided and abetted by my godfather, a crusty old Scot if there ever was one, who had himself won the Diamonds and the Stockholm Olympics (in A Traveller’s Life, Eric Newby, 1982).

Looking at the picture above, taken when Wally was in his eighties, a twinkle in his eye and a bottle of whisky in his hand, I don’t think that I would use the epithet ‘crusty old Scot’. He looks like fun to me.

This was, indeed, many great stories about one fine sculler – thank you, Tim!

Harry Tate - The Music Hall Star And Oarsman

Earlier today, the reliable Tim Koch responded to my question from Sunday's entry about Blackie's friend at the oar, Harry Tate. From London Tim writes,

"Here is a picture of Harry Tate the music hall star. It seems to be the same person as Harry Blackstaffe's partner. I am impressed that he could lead the life of an itinerant performer and still be a good enough rower to partner the great man. Nothing to do with rowing, but Harry Tate's catch phrases are interesting. 'Goodbyeee' inspired a very popular song of the First World War and beyond. 'How's your father?' was commonly used in Britain as a euphemism for sex until fairly recently. 'I don't think' used ironically (as in 'He's a nice chap - I don't think') was unknowingly revived in the form 'Not!' in the Mike Meyer's film, Wayne's World in 1992."

Thank you, Tim for solving the 'Harry Tate Mystery'!

Blackie's Rowing Partner Harry Tate

When I wrote about Harry Blackstaffe’s charming little drawing of a sculler after his name on the dinner list of the winners of the Wingfield Sculls in 1930, I could not remember where I had seen it previously. But the other day, when I was going through some old rowing post cards, I came across Blackstaffe’s signature again. Blackstaffe, or ‘Blackie’ as he was called, rowed and sculled for Vesta RC, and in the photograph above, we can see him together with Harry Tate in a pair. Looking in H. B. Wells’s Vesta Rowing Club: A Centenary History (1969), I can only find Blackie’s partner mentioned twice, in the Foreword, written by Thames RC’s Freddy Page, and by Wells, who writes, “The No. 2 in the crew was R. M. Hutchison, later a famous figure on the music hall stage under the name ‘Harry Tate’.” [p.5] But maybe that is not Blackie’s partner in the boat, although the name is the same. Anyone who knows?

Wingfield Sculls Centenary Dinner Menu

Autobiographer Vivian Nickalls, Wally Kinnear, and Bill of Fare composer, Guy Nickalls.

Here is a little foot note to the wonderful story Tim Koch provided about the Wingfield Sculls Centenary Dinner which was posted yesterday. In Vivian Nickalls’s autobiography Oars, Wars, and Horses – how I love this title – which was published in 1932, Nickalls mentions this dinner (pages 42-45) and the Bill of Fare which was composed by his brother, Guy Nickalls. It is really an oarsman’s menu,

“THE START with WHERRY – good OAR d’Oeuvres NO CRABS included – soup TURN TURTLE – fish SOLES PRESSED (against the stretcher) – Cutlets supreme with CUTTERS (far astern) – NO FOWLS Pheasants with NO FEATHERING – THE STARTERS – Peches TO Melba – BEST and BEST BOAT Ice – Last Course – CHAMPION CHAMPIGNONS with a HARD ROW Over. Wines without Whines – Champagne – Real Pain for those on Fixed Seats Only – Port – Starting Always On The Port Side.”

Vivian Nickalls writes that three more Wingfields’ winners were invited to the dinner, but F.L. Playford was very ill, and both A.A. Stuart and A.H. Cloutte were abroad at the time of the dinner. Nickalls seems to have collected the autographs of the fourteen men present (Above; observe the charming little drawing of a sculler after Harry Blackstaffe’s name!).

The Rowing English Gentleman

In a message regarding a previous entry on my blog, Tim Koch of Auriol Kensington RC in London has some entertaining comments: “Your recent posting, ‘An Oarsman’s Dress Code’, included two of my interests: rowing history and classic men’s clothes. The archive at Auriol Kensington nicely illustrates how men’s formal dress changed during the Twentieth Century. The splendid picture ‘Wingfield Sculls of the Thames’ [above] shows a dinner given by the Earl of Iveagh (Rupert Guinness) held at his house, 11 St James’s Square, on 11th December 1930 for past winners of the Wingfield Sculls (The English Amateur Sculling Championship). Those present, to commemorate the centenary of this race, were Iveagh, Guy Nickalls, Rev. W.S. Unwin, F.I. Pitman, Vivian Nickalls, J.L. Tann, T.D.A. Collet, H.D. Blackstaffe, D.Guye, J.C. Gardner, J. Beresford [Jr.], Rev. A.C. Dicker, C.W. Wise, and W.D. Kinnear. All are resplendent in ‘white tie’, which is a tailcoat, white waistcoat (vest) and dress shirt with a stiff bib front, high-standing wing collar and white bow tie. Even Kinnear and Blackstaffe, men much lower on the social scale than the rest of the group, are in the correct dress. They are all wearing their Wingfield Medals, each with a bar on the ribbon denoting the year(s) in which they won.” [Have a look on the right at the stylish Jack Beresford, Jr., and his seven bars for his Wingfields' victories between 1920-1926].

On this fascinating topic Tim continues, “Though taken in 1930, the picture is more illustrative of a formal gathering before the 1914-1918 War. The picture ‘KRC Dinner 1933’ [above] shows the mixture of ‘white tie’ and ‘black tie’ (a.k.a. ‘dinner jacket’ or ‘dinner suit’ or ‘tuxedo’) that would have been common in the inter war years. The dinner jacket had been invented in the 1870s by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII, 1901-1910) for informal dining at home. Its essence was a tailless jacket and soft shirt with a turned down collar and black bow tie. By the 1930s the Duke of Windsor (briefly King Edward VIII) and his set were wearing the more comfortable outfit in public and it began to replace the tailcoat. ('DOW' in 'DJ' on the right.) Since the 1939-1945 War, white tie is only seen on the most formal of state occasions. In the 1960s and 1970s it looked as though black tie would also drift into oblivion but, by the time I started to attend rowing club dinners in the mid 1980s, the ‘DJ’ was back and is now worn by the vast majority of men at formal evening functions. I do mean ‘evening’, only Americans and waiters wear black tie during the day. At Auriol Kensington, those of us with regatta blazers sometimes follow the Oxford and Cambridge custom of wearing them in place of the traditional jacket with our dinner suits. On the left is a picture of me in such a rig,” Tim concludes.

Tim, this was very entertaining. Thank you! Maybe time for you to start a blog on well-dressed oarsmen and oarswomen?

F. S. Kelly – A Life of Rowing and Music 1

While in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to study piano and composition at Dr. Hoch Konservatorium, F. S. Kelly one day picks up a copy of The Times where he reads that Lou F. Scholes is going to represent Canada in the single scull at the Olympic rowing regatta in Henley-on-Thames. In his diary the same day, 10 May 1908, Kelly writes that the news ‘roused my fighting spirit so much that I went off to ask Director Scholz about the date of the Concert at which I am to play and conduct, to find out for certain whether it will possible for me to scull and have my revenge.’

This entry in Kelly’s diary gives an excellent illustration of what was close to his heart: music and rowing.

Frederick Septimus Kelly was born on 29 May 1881 in Sydney. Frederick was the seventh child of Thomas Hussey Kelly, a wealthy Irish businessman, and his wife, Mary Anne, born in Australia. Like his brothers, ‘Sep’, as he was called by the family, was sent to Eton, where he began to row in 1897 - stroking the eight to victory in the Ladies’ Plate at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1899. As a Lewis Nettleship musical scholar, he went up to Balliol College at Oxford. In Oxford, Kelly – or ‘Cleg’ as he was known there - also took up sculling, winning the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley for his college in 1902. On his way to his first Diamond victory, he beat prominent scullers as A. H. Cloutte (London RC), C. S. Titus (Union BC, New York), and R. B. Etherington-Smith (Leander Club).

The following year was very successful for Kelly, although his Oxford eight lost the Boat Race. In the cerise colours of Leander Club, Kelly won the Wingfield Sculls, and the Grand and the Diamond trophies at Henley. After his first Diamonds, Kelly had rapidly been regarded as a brilliant sculler. At his second Diamonds, he easily sculled away from Julius Beresford (Kensington RC) and H. T. Blackstaffe (Vesta RC) to claim the trophy. A contemporary source wrote that ‘his swinging and sliding were perfect in unison and symmetry’ and another one said, ‘that the grace with which his hands left the body at the finish of the stroke was like the down-ward beat of a swallow’s wing.’

It was, therefore, all the more surprising when, in a heat in the Diamonds in 1904, Lou F. Scholes of Toronto RC defeated Kelly. Scholes had been two lengths behind at Remenham, when suddenly he put on a spurt and easily gained on Kelly. At the Grand Stand, Kelly was two lengths behind and, totally exhausted, had to stop. He was lifted out of his shell into a launch while the Toronto oarsman crossed the finish line. The Henley crowd was astonished that ‘a sculler with the style of the Canadian, who depended on his arms and legs, and was without body swing, could beat one with the easy and natural form of the Anglo-Australian.’

One reason for the loss, T. A. Cook wrote, was that Kelly had only trained in his boat for three weeks before his first race in the Diamonds that year. Kelly’s unwillingness to train, made Vivian Nickalls write in his Oars, Wars, and Horses (1932) that Kelly ‘hated training and spent his whole time playing the violin.’ Vivian’s brother, Guy, agreed and wrote in his posthumous published memoirs, Life’s a Pudding (1939), that Kelly ‘was most likely the fastest sculler of all time – quick, neat and polished’ but added solemnly ‘a difficult man to train.’ Unfortunately, Vivian Nickalls’s comment about which instrument Kelly played would later make rowing historians joke and incorrectly remark that Kelly was a sculling ‘fiddler’.

Revengeful at the 1905 Henley Royal Regatta, Kelly easily outclassed all his opponents in the Diamonds (Scholes was not competing), trashing poor Blackstaffe in the final with 15 seconds, winning in the new record time, 8 minutes, 10 seconds, beating the Canadian’s record time from the previous year by 13 seconds. Kelly’s record would last until 1938, when the American Joe Burk knocked 8 seconds off Kelly’s time. In 1905, Kelly would also win the Grand (as he had done in 1904), and adding another triumph in 1906 in the Stewards’ Cup.

In Kelly’s personal life, his father’s death in 1901, and his mother’s death the following year, was a hard blow for Kelly, whose academic studies suffered, and he graduated with fourth-class honours in history. However, his father’s passing left Kelly economically independent, which allowed him to set up a comfortable life with his sister Mary, ‘Maisie’, at Bisham Grange, a house close to Marlow. There they lived a high-society life with trips to London and abroad. Kelly, with his good-looks, was also invited by aristocratic friends to give piano concerts in their country houses.

To be continued...

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?