Of those that go down to the River

The famous coach, writer and poet of light verse, Rudie Lehmann’s name stands out when it comes to rowing matters. In 1889, he and some fellow Cambridge students founded the magazine, The Granta, and Rudie took on the position as its first editor. Later, he joined the staff of Punch. However, he was not the only one writing light verse on rowing at Cambridge. In 1895, Owen Seaman (on the right) who had been admitted to Clare College, Cambridge, in 1880, published Horace at Cambridge, a small book with witty poetry, some dealing with rowing. All of the poems had earlier, in one form or the other, appeared in The Granta. In 1897, Seaman joined the staff of Punch, and between 1906 and 1932, he was the editor of the magazine. In “Of those that go down to the River”, Seaman gave the rowing freshmen a taste what they could expect if they were drawn to the river:

WHERE Boating Captains on their beat
Go shepherding the tortuous fleet
Of tubs along the river's reedy hollows,
I marked the Genius who addressed
A Freshman with a beefy chest;
The views of Camus were expressed
Somewhat as follows.

“It first behoves you to undo
Of all your buttons just the two
Topmost, and chance the weather being breezy;
Then, swinging stiffly from the hip,
Cause your prehensile heels to grip
The stretcher; at the signal, nip
Great Heavens! Easy!

Where were we? Yes. There is a rule
Whereby the oarsman, though a fool,
May guarantee the boat against inversion;
Observe your blade; the thing is bent
Obliquely to the element;
Square it at once, and so prevent
Needless immersion.

Again; deposit, if you please,
Your stomach well between your knees,
Aim broadly at the bottom of the vessel;
Swing early, often, long and late;
This is the doctrine up to date,
With which the most immaculate
Fresher must wrestle.

Reck nothing though the process pain
Your blistered hide and make you fain
To be a scaly merman with a sea-tail;
A time may yet arrive when you
Will be as hardened as a Blue,
And have a soul superior to
Matters of detail.

That future waits you far and dim,
And in the awful interim
You have to pass a pretty hot probation;
‘Much is to learn, much to forget,’
And now and then you'll feel regret,
And never, never, fail to sweat
With perspiration.

Full often, rowing like an ox,
On you the curses of your cox,
Falling like blasts of some Tyrrhenian trumpet,
Will rend the horror-stricken air
With language fit to curl the hair
That clusters nicely round the fair
Crest of your crumpet.

Then will you at your rigid thwart
Restrain the apposite retort
And like the parrot merely think profanely,
The while your heavy head you wag
Panting as pants the hunted stag,
And wear your ‘Pontius’ to a rag,
Sliding inanely.

Perchance you will mislay your oar,
When quickening to forty-four,
And learn a little jargon from your skipper;
Or get an unexpected spank
Straight in the centre of your flank
From some inordinately rank
Holiday-tripper.

Those coaches you shall come to know,
That trot with caution to and fro
And wish their knowledge of the chase were larger;
Your valour shall divert the way
Of Nestor-Jones’s* blinkered grey,
And draw a compliment from J.
B. ** on his charger.

Eventually you will land
Triumphant after trials, and
Talk frankly like a father from the saddle
You have the makings of a tar,
And should, with fortune, travel far;
Meanwhile you might get forward. Are
You ready? Paddle!”

‘Nestor-Jones’ (*) was of course Henry Trevor-Jones, described by Seaman in a footnote as the ‘popular and perpetual coach of Trinity Hall’. In a second footnote Seaman wrote that ‘J.B.’ (**) was ‘J. B. Close, President of the C.U.B.C., 1894-5’ which demands an explanation. James B. Close rowed in three winning Cambridge crews in 1872, 1873 and 1874. The latter year, he was president of Cambridge University BC. For the 1895 Light Blue crew, Close was elected president again because he lived in Cambridge, but he did not row that year. With a non-rowing president, the cox Francis Begg undertook the captaincy of the crew. James B. Close’s one-year-older brother, John B. Close, also rowed for Cambridge, earning his Blue in 1871 and 1872. A third brother, William B. Close, earned his Blue in 1875, 1876 and 1877. In a second edition of Horace at Cambridge, which was published in 1902, the stanza in which Trevor-Jones and Close was mentioned was removed.

Rowing History Footnote: Leave it to Sandow, the Strong Man...

Earlier on HTBS there was an entry about the crews who rowed in the 1897 Boat Race. The Dark Blues won, despite the high hopes the Light Blues had to overcome their antagonists. In September the same year, the satirical Punch, or the London Charivari published a funny illustration how the 1898 Cambridge crew would look if 'Sandow, the strong man' would be in charge of the Light Blues' training, using 'his own system'.

‘Sandow, the strong man’ was actually Eugen Sandow (1867–1925), who was born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, a Prussian pioneer also known as the ‘father of modern bodybuilding’. He began his career as a circus athlete, but soon shifted over from lifting heavy obstacles to flexing his muscles. On Wikipedia.org it says: ‘Sandow’s resemblance to the physiques found on classical Greek and Roman sculpture was no accident, as he measured the statues in museums and helped to develop “The Grecian Ideal” as a formula for the “perfect physique.”’

Read more about Sandow here.

View a short clip on Sandow showing off his body art:


In the article "The Making of a Rowing Blue", published in The Tatler on 5 March, 1902, Walter 'Guts' Woodgate wrote: 'The Farnese Hercules would be a duffer in the boat; he has too much arm and shoulder and too light a loin in proportion. He would try to do all his work with arms, especially with biceps, and would be a bad choice for a torpid or lower division eight.'

Maybe this is why the Light Blues never asked Sandow to coach them? No, to be honest, Sandow did a lot to help rowing and other sports by publishing a paper, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, which had some very well-written articles on all kinds of different sports.

Hospitality At Henley

Chorus (to unfortunate swimmer). "GO AWAY! GO AWAY!"

[From Punch 12 July, 1911]

Although, it is going to be my first visit to Henley Royal this summer, I believe the hospitality is greater than this....

Sporting Illustrations By Booth

Frontispiece by artist J.L.C. Booth in R.C. Lehmann's Sportsmen and Others.

Bryan Kitch of the eminent blog Rowing Related made a comment regarding the image I used for Wednesday's entry about R.C. Lehmann's Sportsmen and Others (1912). Bryan is asking if there are others like it in Lehmann's book. Yes, there is, but I believe I picked the nicest one to illustrate the entry. The illustrator of Lehmann's book was J.L.C. Booth, who, in 1898, came out with his own book Sporting Rhymes & Pictures.

Lehmann and Booth probably knew each other from the magazine Punch, where Booth now and then had illustrations published. Although, it is not easy to find information about Booth, he seems to have been a well-respected illustrator. In a review of Sportsmen and Others, the Evening Post of New Zealand writes on 11 May 1912 about the book: "Mr. Booth's fourteen or fifteen sporting and character sketches suggest (and correctly) a lively book of shrewd observations and wholesome humour."

In the story "A Putney Waterman" a lady "had a difference with her 'old man'", so she flung herself over the railing. "She'd mistook the tide, for the ebb was three-parts run out, and there warn't more than a foot or two of water where she jumped. [... She said:] 'Don't save me, sailor,' she sez when she see me comin', 'I've sworn to die.' 'So you shall, ma'am,' I sez, 'some other day."

"[...] it may be said of coxswains that they are not so much individual men as members of a tribe or secret society formed entirely of male human beings weighing on an average 8 stone. They have meeting-places where they come together to devise the torments which later on they inflict on their fellow-mortals. The have signs and passwords." In "Coxswains".

For Henley

"For Henley.
The Protector Protected"

[From Punch 29 June 1927]

Let's hope Henley gets good boating weather this year!

The Henley Spirit!

"The Sporting Spirit: An Echo Of Henley."
[From Punch 12 July, 1922]

On 30 June, it is time for the Henley Royal Regatta again!

Romance At Henley

Rowing man: "Charming Girl, Your Cousin, Such Eton Eyes; Such Leander Cheeks."
[From Punch 6 July, 1921]

Rudie Lehmann's Rowing Style

We all have our ‘rowing heroes’. One of mine is Rudolph Chambers Lehmann (1856-1929) – R.C. Lehmann – who was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a famous coach, both for Oxford and Cambridge, but also for Leander, Harvard University, Trinity College (Dublin) and Berliner Ruderklub. During a few years, he was a Member of Parliament for the Liberals. Lehmann wrote some very good books on rowing, and wrote articles for Punch. He is also known as a poet, who wrote light verse which was mostly published in Punch. Here is one fine example:

Style and the Oar

To sit upon a seat
With the straps about your feet,
And to grasp an oar and use it, to recover and to slide,
And to keep your body swinging,
And to get the finish ringing,
And to send the light ship leaping as she whizzes on the tide!

To make the rhythm right
And your feather clean and bright,
And to slash as if you loved it, though your muscles seem to crack;
And, although your brain is spinning,
To be sharp with your beginning,
And to heave your solid body indefatigably back;

Not to be a fraction late
When the rate is thirty-eight;
To be quick when stroke demands it, to be steady when he’s slow;
And to keep a mind unheeding
When the other lot are leading,
And to set your teeth and brace your back and just to make her go.

And when she gives a roll
To swing out with heart and soul,
And to balance her and rally her and get her trim and true;
And while the ship goes flying
To hear the coxswain crying,
“Reach our, my boys, you’ll do it!” and, by Jupiter, you do!

To seek your bed at ten,
And to tumble out again
When the clocks are striking seven and the winds of March are chill;
To be resolute and steady,
Cheerful, regular, and ready
For a run upon the Common or a tramp up Putney Hill;

To sink yourself and be
Just a unit, and to see
How the individual withers and the crew is more and more;
And to guard without omission
Every glorious tradition
That the ancient heroes founded when they first took up an oar;

In short, to play the game
Not so much for name or fame
As to win a common honour for your colours light or dark –
Oh! It’s this has made your crew-man
Such a chivalrous and true man
Since the day that Father Noah went a-floating in the Ark.

After The Boat Race

After The Race

“What Do They Do Till The Next Boat-Race, Father?”
“Well – They Go On With Their Rowin’ – With A Bit Of Studyin’ Thrown In.”
[From Punch, 28 March 1923]

HAPPY EASTER!

Boat Race Practice

Chivalrous old Lady (watching Boat-race practice), “Well, If That’s What You Call A Boat-Race, John, I Think It’s Distinctly Unfair.”
[From Punch, 18 March 1925]

Tomorrow it is time for the Boat Race on the Thames again. It can be hard to predict which boat is going to be the winner. But one thing is for certain, it is either Oxford or Cambridge!

(This is borrowed from the legendary BBC correspondent John Snagge, who during the 1949 Boat Race reported: “I can't see who's in the lead but it's either Oxford or Cambridge.”)

A Sure Spring Sign

First Juvenile Spectator (as the Oxford crew go out to practice). “There Y’Are, ‘Erb – Wot Did I Tell Yer? They ‘Ave Got Only One Oar Each!”
Second ditto, “You Wait Till The Day Of The Race!”
[From Punch, 24 March 1920]

The Boat Race is a sure sign that Spring is here. This year the Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge is on 3 April, and with the hard winter we have had both in Europe and the USA, I can hardly wait…

The Rowing Expert

“Beautiful, Ain’t It – All Those Oars Going Through The Water Like One Man? “
[From Punch, 16 March 1932]

Women Rowing In The Year 1866

Boat-Race Of The Future – Drifting Down To The Starting-Point.

It might be that the artist of this image, published in Punch in 1866, though that he was terribly funny: women rowing and racing in eights, what a hilarious idea. Well, now more than 140 years later, we know it is not a laughing matter… [From Punch, 2 June 1866].

Rowing In Punch

Coach (on cycle). “Hang You, Cox! You’ll Be Into The Bank.
Why Can’t You Look Where You ‘re Going!”

Ahh, these demanding coaches… [From Punch, 5 July 1911].

"New" boat type to be launched

Nowadays, as you know, almost every builder of racing shells around the world can offer a customized boat for a buyer’s special needs. It does not matter whether it is a club, a college, or a national federation, a buyer can, for example, choose if the coxswain should be steering on a seat in the stern (stern-coxed) or lying down in the bow (bow-coxed) of an eight. To easier transport the shell on a trailer, one can order a boat that can be divided in the middle, or even in three or more sections. It is even possible to order one-seat sections and that way put together a four, six, or eight. Around ten years ago, the Swiss boat maker Stämpfli built a boat for 24 rowers or scullers. The boat, which still exists, is known as the Stämpfli Express, or Stämpfli 24.

The well-reputed French rowing magazine Le Bateau d'Aviron pour les Fous revealed just the other day, that the new French boat builder Puan T. Fromage, outside the town of Lyon, has developed a “flexible” shell for 50 rowers, called “Quinquaginta”. With this new boat it will be easier for those clubs that are operating on narrow rivers with plenty of sharp bends to allow their oarsmen to get the training they need.

However, as always when it comes to rowing, nothing is new under the sun. This “new” invention is more than one hundred years old! Already in July 1888, the British magazine Punch published a picture of “a new flexible, patent-jointed, vertebral outrigger” – “The Centipede”.


Anyone who is interested in Mr. Fromage’s “Quinquaginta” should contact him immediately as he only takes orders for the boat today – 1 April.

The Boat Race

On Sunday, 29 March 2009, it is time again for the Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race, commonly known as just The Boat Race. It is the 155th race since it first started in 1829, and Oxford, who has the heaviest crew ever, are favourites. Not that the Cambridge crew are any lightweights - this year the race is called “The Battle of the Giants”. Everything you need to know about the race course, crews, the race’s history, etc is available on the official Boat Race site, www.theboatrace.org


Page from the magazine Punch, April 9, 1881. The headline reads "Mr. Punch's Guide To The University Boat-Race".