The Cods: Paris or the bush?

Greg Denieffe writes:

News has reached HTBS that the story of ‘The Murray Bridge Cods’ is to be made into 60-minute documentary by Australian International Pictures. It will tell the story of Murray Bridge Rowing Club and how they beat the odds to represent Australia at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

When I contacted Wayne Groom, the director of the documentary, he informed me that the target date for completion is 31 December 2014 but that there was still a lot of research to do and interviews to conduct. The project has a Facebook page that has started posting regular updates and a website with further details and an appeal for financial support to fund the project.

Here is a link to a short promotional film to whet the appetite of HTBS readers.

Last May, HTBS posted two articles about the Australian 1924 Olympic eight’s trip to Ireland to compete at the Tailteann Games. Australia was represented by Murray Bridge Rowing Club. Founded in 1909, the club won their first interstate championships in 1913 representing South Australia. Unfortunately, the First World War ended the hopes of this crew ever representing Australia at an Olympic Games.

The Cup presented to the winners of ‘The Allied Forces Eights’ at the 1919 Royal Henley Peace Regatta.

Following the end of the War, the Stewards of Henley Royal Regatta decided in January 1919 that it would not be desirable to hold Henley Royal Regatta that year but that an interim regatta, later called Royal Henley Peace Regatta, should be held. King George V presented a cup for competition between amateur oarsmen that had served in the Army, Navy or Air Force of any country who had fought for the Allied forces. The competition was called The Allied Forces Eights and was won by the Australian Imperial Forces. The Australian interstate championships resumed in 1920 and in 1922 this cup became the trophy for the championship eights and was renamed The King’s Cup. Murray Bridge won the interstate eights in 1920, 1922 and 1923 and the test race for Olympic selection in 1924.

According to the Australian Army Shop there was some resistance to the use of the cup as a trophy for the interstate championships:

The King’s Cup was presented by King George V to the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) Number One Crew on July 4th 1919 after the crew’s win at the Henley Peace Regatta. This historic post-war regatta brought together eight teams representing the Allies of the First World War. Australia fielded two crews – AIF Number One and AIF Number Two – for the eight-oared race. They vied against each other and against the USA, France, New Zealand, Canada and Cambridge and Oxford Universities for the prize.

In the end AIF Number One Crew defeated Oxford University for the prize, having also beaten AIF Number Two Crew in the first round and Cambridge University in the semi-final. The King’s Cup was presented to the crew's stroke, Captain M. C. Disher of the Australian Army Medical Corps before being taken by the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Forces Sports Control Board. The board shipped the trophy to the Australian War Museum.

Despite repeated requests to the Australian War Museum that the Cup be used as a perpetual trophy for the annual Interstate Eight-Oar Championship of Australia, the trophy remained locked away. Capt. Disher decided to petition King George V for the trophy’s release. He sent his petition via the Governor General to the King on October 30th 1920. The last line of his petition reads, “And your petitioner therefore humbly prays that your Majesty may be graciously pleased to make known your wishes in regard to the disposal of the said Trophy.”

The King’s response was conveyed by Winston S. Churchill, who wrote: “His Majesty commands me to inform you that it is his wish that the Cup should be used as a permanent trophy and be competed for annually in the Interstate Eight-Oar Race of Australia.”

In the HTBS posts The Case of CoD v Cods and More on Murray Bridge and 'The Cods' you can read about Murray Bridge’s adventures in Paris at the Olympics and on their trip to Ireland for the Tailteann Games where they competed in the international eights, fours and single sculls.

One of the photographs unearthed by Wayne is this one of The Cods stroke Wally Pfeiffer after he won the single sculls at the Tailteann Games in Ireland in 1924.

'We are horrified to hear...'

Australian “Ergometer” from the 1960s – from the section “The Development of Rowing Equipment” on the website Friends of Rowing History.

You probably know that rowing machines have been around for more than 130 years. But do you know when the ''ergometer' arrived on the scene, in the sense of a tool which could measure rowers' power? In an old copy of the British magazine Rowing, its editor, Major E. A. E. Howell, wrote in the issue Vol.1 No. 3 February 1950 in a very English way:

'From Australia we are horrified to hear that professor Frank Cotton, The professor at Sydney University, has produced a specially designed rowing machine called Ergometer.

'On this machine he tested over 200 athletes. From among these he selected four “Guniea Pigs” to train as a crew. This crew averages only a mere 14 stone 8 lbs [92.5 kg]. They use oars a foot longer and blades “several inches” deeper than standard. Although they had not rowed together before last April, this Lichhardt [sic – referring to Leichhardt Rowing Club!] crew has won nine out of eleven races in its first season. It was only defeated for selection to compete in the Empire Games by a four established repute by a very narrow margin. We suppose this is all very efficient but to reduce sportsmen to the inhuman level of automatons, selected on scientific physical assessments, is, to our eyes, the negation of the ideals of a fine sport.'

How wrong he was, Major Howell.....

Rowing to Government

Parliament House in Canberra, Australia.

HTBS’s contributor Louis Petrin in Australia writes,

Last week Australia saw a change of government. Why mention this in HTBS? Well the number of government leaders who had rowed is impressive – of the 28 Prime Ministers of Australia, seven were rowers! That is an amazing 25%.

Can any other country in the world claim their leaders to be rowers?

Here is a list of the rowers:

Edmund Barton – Protectionist Party – rowed in 2 seat for Sydney University at the very first inter-university boat race in Melbourne in December 1870 and won by Melbourne Uni. Barton was also a foundation member of the Sydney Rowing Club and our 1st Prime Minister in 1901.
 

Chris Watson – Labor Party – born in Chile (only Australian Prime Minister to be born outside of Australia, or the British Isles) he was Federal Labor's first leader and the 3rd Prime Minister, had little schooling but rowed in the 1890s like many workers did at the time.

Stanley Bruce – Nationalist Party – Captain Melbourne Grammar School Rowing & First VIII. Bruce also rowed and coached at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University. Australia’s 8th Prime Minister.

John Grey Gorton – Liberal Party – schoolboy at Shore (where he shared a dorm with Errol Flynn), then went to Brasenose College, Oxford University in October 1932 where he ‘majored in rowing’. The country’s 19th Prime Minister.

William McMahon – Liberal Party – Sydney Grammar 1st VIII in 1926; the 20th Prime Minister.

Gough Whitlam – Labor Party – St. Paul’s College and won a Blue at Sydney Uni 1938; the 21st Prime Minister.

Tony Abbott – Liberal Party – member of the winning 2nd VIII at the GPS Regattas in 1974 and 1975. Australia’s 28th and the current Prime Minister.

Champions Rowing in Australia for their State of Origin

HTBS’s Louis Petrin, who volunteered during last week’s regatta, is here seen holding the most prestigious regatta trophy, the King’s Cup.

Whilst rowing in the UK has been affected by some severe weather conditions, rowing in Sydney, Australia, has had temperatures around 30°C (86°F).

The past seven days has seen a feast of rowing events and records made at the National Championships, the Interstate Regatta, Schoolboy and Schoolgirl Championships and the Samsung World Cup.

A great summary on these events can be found on this website.

Probably of more interest to HTBS followers will be the trophies presented to winning crews for the various Interstate events. These are simply races between crews made up of rowers from the seven of the states and territory of Australia.

Some pictures of the various Interstate trophies:

Interstate Regatta Trophies

Women’s Single Scull - The Nell Slatter Trophy
The Queensland Women’s Rowing Association donated the perpetual trophy in 1963 for as a tribute to the then Queensland President Nell Slatter.

Nell Slatter Trophy

Men’s Single Scull – The President’s Cup
Mr E.C. Watchorn, the first President of the Australian Amateur Rowing Council, donated the President’s Cup as the perpetual trophy in 1926.

President’s Cup

Women’s Lightweight Four/Quadruple Scull – The Victoria Cup
The Victorian Ladies’ Rowing Association presented this perpetual trophy in 1968.

Victoria Cup

Men’s Lightweight Coxless Four  - The Penrith Cup
The Penrith City Council provided this perpetual trophy in 1958.

Penrith Cup

Women’s Youth Four/Eight – The Bicentennial Cup
Presented by the New South Wales Rowing Association in 1988 for winning Coxed Four crews and changed to being presented to winning Eights in 1994.

Bicentennial Cup

Men’s Youth Eight – The Noel F Wilkinson Trophy
Donated by Noel Wilkinson, a long serving Treasurer of the Australian Rowing Council, in 1974.

The Noel F Wilkinson Trophy

Women’s Eight – The Queen Elizabeth II Trophy, formerly known as the ULVA Trophy
The United Licensed Victuallers Association (ULVA) of Queensland presented this unique trophy in 1921 for the winning Women’s Four. It changed to being presented to the winning Eights in 1999 and its name became the Queen Elizabeth II Trophy, or simply the Queen’s Cup. Its nickname is Bertha and is my favourite trophy of all.

Queen’s Cup

Men’s Eight – The King’s Gold Cup
In 1878, the first race between Eights from Victoria and New South Wales took place. From 1921, crews raced for the King’s Gold Cup. This cup was won by the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force eight at the Royal Henley Peace Regatta at Henley-on-Thames in July 1919. The trophy was a substitution for the Grand Challenge Cup race for that year which was not raced due to the war.

King’s Cup

Queen’s & King’s Cup together

My good friend Barry Moynahan led a working group to commemorate the King’s Cup. It was installed at the SIRC course at Penrith and unveiled at a moving ceremony on Sunday, 17 February during the 2013 New South Wales Rowing Championships.

King’s Cup Commemorative Plaque

2013 Sydney International Rowing Regatta

Dawn at the Sydney International Rowing Centre, Penrith – Finish Tower on left.

HTBS’s Louis Petrin writes from Australia,

More than 2,000 competitors will take part in 110 events at the Sydney International Rowing Regatta – a meet that includes the 2013 Australian Open Rowing Championships, the Australian Open Schools Rowing Championships, the King’s Cup and the Queen’s Cup.

This week, 18 to 24 March, has seen some fine rowing in Sydney at the SIRC rowing course in Penrith, the course used for the 2000 Olympics, and continues until Sunday, 24 March.

Chatting to our overseas visitors from USA and U.K., they all comment on how wonderful to have temperatures of 27°C (81°F) with no wind – just perfect for a rowing regatta. We have visitors from other countries, too, such as New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Portugal, Hungary, Germany, Estonia, France and China.

Samsung World Rowing Cup
This year, the regatta is unique as it incorporates for the first time here in Samsung World Rowing Cup (round 1), the fifth time a global rowing event has been held in Australia. The events will be held from 22-24 March.

Live video streaming of the finals at no charge can viewed at www.worldrowing.com beginning this weekend (22-24 March). USRowing has entered a team of eight crews for this opening regatta of the 2013 international season, including six Olympic medallists. Great Britain, which topped the medal ranks at the 2012 London Olympics, will line up at the 2000 Olympic Games course with a record number of nine Olympic medallists, including five London gold medallists.

Other events to be rowed are the national Australian Rowing Championships (18-22 March), Kings and Queens Cups Interstate Regatta (23 March) and the Australian Open Schools Rowing Championships (22-24 March).

Australian Rowing Championships
The Australian Rowing Championships is an annual rowing event that determines Australia’s national rowing champions and guides the selection of Australian representative crews for World Championships and the Olympic Games. It is Australia’s premier regatta, with states, clubs and schools sending their best crews. The Championships commence with the National Regatta – men’s, women’s and lightweight events in open, under 23, under 19, under 17 and school age categories. Rowers at the National Regatta race in their local club colours with composite crews permitted.

The first proposal for a National Championship was submitted by NSW rowing association at the Australian Amateur Rowing Council meeting in 1946 and it failed to gain support outside NSW. Kevyn Webb of NSW was the driving force behind these proposals, being presented at each of the Council meetings up to 1960. That’s the persistence of a rower!

Kevyn Webb sculling in 1960.

(photo from www.rowinghistory-aus.info/national-championships/index.html)

Finally, a report was tabled at the 1961 Australian Rowing Council meeting prepared by Webb and the six States voted unanimously to hold the first National Championship Regatta on Lake Wendouree at Ballarat, in 1962. The National Championships became an annual event in 1974.

The Australian Women’s Rowing Council conducted their first National Championships events in 1968 and thereafter conducted the event annually. The men’s and women’s associations merged in 1979 but jointly conducted their Championships from 1976.
The Championships traditionally conclude with the Kings and Queens Cups Interstate Regatta – currently six events competed by state representative crews or scullers selected by the state rowing associations.

The King’s Cup – Interstate Men’s Eight
The King’s Cup is one of the most anticipated events in the Australian rowing calendar, and is competed for during the annual Interstate Regatta. With a history that dates back to the late 19th century, interstate rowing boasts some of the oldest and fiercest rivalries in Australian Sport. Rowers compete for their state in eight crews, men’s and women’s open and under 21 eights, single sculls and quad and four.

Victoria and New South Wales commenced inter-colonial racing in eight-oared boats in 1878 when the Victorian Rowing Association invited New South Wales oarsmen from the Sydney and the Mercantile clubs to boat crews for a race on the lower Yarra River over about four miles, with Victoria winning by two lengths.

Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania all showed an interest in entering crews from the mid-1880s but disagreements over definitions of amateur status resulted in inconsistencies in eligibility criteria in the early decades. New South Wales held firm to a view that not just professional sportsmen and those employed around boats would be deemed non-amateurs but also all manual labourers. Such debates were common around the world at this time and continued for quite a few years. The other states had relaxed this view by 1899.

Queensland and Tasmania first entered crews in 1885 and then Queensland raced regularly from 1890. From 1899 South Australia were racing annually. Following Federation the race became the interstate eight-oared championship with Tasmania and West Australia boating crews regularly by 1906.

However, since 1921 the crews have competed for the King’s Cup. The trophy had been won by an AIF crew at the Royal Peace Regatta held in London in 1919 following the cessation of hostilities at the end of WWI and was presented to the victorious eight-oared boat by King George V. In time, and in against dogged resistance from the Australian War Memorial, the Victorian Rowing Association petitioned the King to express his intention for the Cup, and at his command it became the perennial trophy to be presented to the winning state representative men’s eight at the annual Australian Rowing Championships.

King’s Cup

This year, the NSW crew will be stroked Dan Noonan crew as they try to set a new record of “six in a row” for NSW in this event.

The Queen Elizabeth II Cup – Interstate Women’s Eight
The result of the first Interstate Women’s Four Championship in 1920 was a win for South Australia. The next year, the United Licensed Victuallers Association (ULVA) of Queensland presented a unique sterling silver trophy to the Australian Women’s Rowing Council. The trophy was crafted by London silversmiths to depict Dorothy Arnold, the petite girl from Mannum who stroked the winning crew for South Australia. She is holding her oar and dressed in the rowing garb of her time, namely a floppy hat, sailor top and billowing bloomers.

Dorothy Arnold holding the trophy modeled on her at the time of winning the first race.

Up until 1998 the largest crewed boat was Fours. In 1999 the women’s interstate race was changed to an event for Eights with the ULVA trophy becoming the Queen Elizabeth II Trophy, or simply the Queen’s Cup, as the prize.

Australian Open School Rowing Championships
The events rowed include single sculls, coxed Fours, coxed Quadruples and Eights. This event has attracted international interest and successful overseas crews will come from Great Britain, the USA, Ireland and Italy.

Gavirate, South Africa’s St. Stithians College, Ireland’s St Joseph’s Galway College and British Abingdon School who will bring their National Champion schoolboy’s Eight, will take on the best Australian crews in the national schoolboy’s Eight. From the U.S., Saratoga, NY, has brought over their girls’ Eight, having won the prestigious Head of the Charles race in October. They will join Italian school Gavirate to contest the National schoolgirls’ Eight.

A Jolly Santa Row!

The start at the Opera House.

HTBS received Chrismas greetings from Louis Petrin our loyal contributor Downunder:



For a few years now the Sydney rowing community participate in the Santa Sprint – a 500-metre race from the Opera House to past the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The prize is telling families just waiting at home what a great row it was. All boats and crews are invited with singles to eights rowing. Santa comes along and tries, but always fails, to align the boats for a start.



 Past the finish line under the Sidney Harbour Bridge.

Yesterday, we had three rowers from various Tideway Rowing Clubs and it was great to share a good row. Our crew were leading but a Four that broke the start sopped us metres from the finish. Not a problem, everyone is a winner at Santa Sprints!

The Riverview Regatta – Rowing for Gold

The Riverview Gold Cup.

This past weekend the row for the Riverview Gold Cup was held Downunder, HTBS’s special reporter Louis Petrin writes,

It was 127 years ago that Saint Ignatius’ College of Riverview organised the first of its annual rowing regatta. Now simply known as the Gold Cup, it is one of the oldest rowing events in Australia and the oldest New South Wales schoolboy regatta. It is also contested by club boats in the Men’s Open VIII, and in recent years by women and schoolgirl crews.

This past weekend saw the Riverview Gold Cup held along a 1,400-metre course on Sydney’s Lane Cove River. The course is locally famous as the only dogleg course on the NSW rowing calendar, making it a great test of cox and crew. The “Leaning Pile” course is where the famous rowing crash occurred as seen on YouTube:



The college was founded in 1880 by Father Joseph Dalton, first Rector of Saint Ignatius’ College. The “St. Ignatius College Rowing Club” (fondly called Riverview) was founded late in 1882 under the guiding hand of Father Thomas Gartlan. The first appearance by a Riverview crew in a rowing challenge was in the School’s Race for the Lord Mayor’s Cup in 1853, which it then went on to win in 1884.

The Rowing Club held its first regatta on Sunday, 20 June, 1885, with some 3,000 visitors to the College. It was recorded in many of the daily newspapers of the time and hailed as “the first College Regatta in the Colony”.  Its success was trumpeted, with one reporter writing, “such cheering and enthusiasm has rarely if ever before been noticed at an amateur meeting”. The winner of the “All Schools Race” silver trophy was Sydney Grammar School by four lengths from Riverview.

In the 1890 Regatta, a race was instituted called “The Lane Cove Challenge Eights”, won by Mercantile Rowing Club (not a school) which changed to the “Riverview Gold Cup Regatta”, now the name of the modern day Regatta.

In 1892, the Regatta Committee invited the residents of Lane Cove, regular spectators of the local race, and others interested in rowing to subscribe to a fund to acquire a suitable Gold Cup, as a trophy for this race. The result is the Riverview Gold Cup, as we have it today.

The Trophy took about three months to complete and was put on show in April 1893. At the time it was said to be the only gold cup for rowing in the world. According a local newspaper report:

The Gold Cup trophy, now awarded to the winning men’s open eight, was first competed for at the 27 May 1893 regatta, or 119 years ago. The Ignatius' Regatta for this year had nine crews competing in maiden fours, with North Shore winning by two lengths from Sydney, Glebe third, and East Sydney and Mercantile behind. The regatta itself was said to be a great success: “such cheering and enthusiasm has seldom, if ever before, been noticed at an amateur meeting”. It was not until 1929 that the first school crew, St Ignatius, competed in the Gold Cup Challenge Eights. The first schoolboy crew to win this open event was Sydney High School in 1938, 48 years after the first race. It was not until 1963 that Riverview won the Gold Cup!

The winners were originally each awarded gold medals and now they receive gold oars as individual trophies for this event. For the other events, winners receive a silver oar. Since the time of its inception, the Gold Cup has been looked upon as an outstanding trophy for rowing.

This year donations are being called for a new gold cup to be made for the women’s eight race to match that awarded to the men’s eight. The cost of the trophy including display cabinet will be around $16,000. The trophy will be made by sculptor Jennifer Mann. The female figure on top of the cup will be modelled on noted NSW rower Tess Gerrand. Tess is an Olympian – 2012 London Olympics Women’s Eight – and three times NCAA champion when at Yale. It will also feature an engraving of the 2001 Australian World Champion Women’s Eight.

On Saturday, 3 December, the regatta was held and the Women’s Challenge was won by Mosman Rowing Club (4m 45. 03s) and the Men’s won by University of Sydney (4m 03. 80s); Sydney was coxed by Toby Lister (Olympic Men’s Eight cox) which made it his eight win!

Sydney University wins the Women’s Quad Scull with Louis’s daughter, Nicole Petrin, in the bow seat.

The Leaning Pile – made famous by YouTube.

The Gold Cup returned to its secured cabinet.

Australian Inter-University Rowing

Louis (on the right) and yours truly

HTBS is happy to introduce Mr. Louis Petrin, an Australian rowing history buff, whom I have actually spent some pleasant hours with this summer when Louis passed through Connecticut. We managed to squeeze in quite a lot about rowing those few hours we spent in the rowing exhibit and boat storage place at Mystic Seaport. In an e-mail, Louis writes about HTBS: “You need some Aussie stuff to give a global view of rowing, which I am happy to gather for you.” And I can only agree. So here it is, Louis first contribution to HTBS. May there be many more to come! He writes,

This week sees virtually all the universities of Australia competing in 30 different sports at the Australian University Games in Adelaide, South Australia. Of interest will be the rowing. Finals are raced on Friday, 28 September.

The earliest race between two of the Australian universities, Sydney and Melbourne, was rowed in 1870. This was the first race of an interstate or international nature known to have taken place in Australia, although the Parramatta River is known to have been the site of races as early as 1863.

The University of Melbourne met with great success in these early races, for not only did it win the first race, but when Sydney challenged Melbourne the following year on the Parramatta, Melbourne once again finished first. Melbourne’s contentment and Sydney’s disappointment might have been responsible for the abandonment of the race until 1888, as an “official” reason is not known.

The revival of a boat racing contest between the universities in 1888 was due to a suggestion made by Dr. W. Fleming Hopkins, a member of the Melbourne University Boat Club. Dr. Hopkins was deputed by Mr. C. H. Freeman (Hon. Secretary of the M.U.B.C.) to speak to the Adelaide University rowing men on the subject of sending Melbourne a challenge to row a race. This challenge for a race in eight-oared boats on the Yarra River was received from Adelaide University by Melbourne University rowing men, bearing the date 27 January, 1888. Sydney University Boat Club was approached, and decided also to send a crew.

So, it was that the first eight-oared race between Australian universities was conducted on 6 October, 1888. Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Universities met on the Homburg reach course of the Yarra River, a distance of just over 4 kilometres (2 ½ miles).

Melbourne was recorded as having won by four lengths over Adelaide in a time of 13 min. 5 secs. and six lengths to third placed Sydney.

Adelaide achieved its first win on 21 December, 1889, at their home course on the Port River, and again in 1896. Sydney’s first win was on 16 June, 1890, by five lengths. Here is a short note about the race in a newspaper:

It was not until 1893 that a significant trophy was first competed for, the Oxford and Cambridge Challenge Cup.

The Oxford and Cambridge Challenge Cup

This fine trophy was presented by Old Blues of Oxford and Cambridge Universities Boat Clubs. Dr. Edmond Warre, later headmaster of Eton College, was mainly responsible for securing the handsome and interesting trophy, which is held as a perpetual trophy for the race, and is kept by the winning boat club for the year in which it is Head of the River.

Frederick Halcomb (Captain of the Adelaide University Boat Club) had rowed against Warre in earlier years. As a good friend of Warre, Halcomb wrote him a letter with an account of the inter-university race that had just begun. A proposal was laid before the university boat clubs at Oxford and Cambridge, and both signified their approval and added a substantial donation. In addition a very large number of past university “oars”, coxswains, and coaches joined in subscribing to fund the trophy. In looking over the list of sympathisers it is pleasant to recognise names of men who made their mark between Putney and Mortlake so long ago as the 1850s, as Judge (Joe) Chitty, Elers, Hornby, Lonsdale, Meade King, and others for Oxford; while the Cambridge’s subscription list includes the name of Tom Egan, who was coaching and steering Cambridge in the 1840s, and who in a memorable year transferred his services to Oxford. In view of such generous sympathy and support from the old universities of England, it was hoped that this tangible show of empathy would foster rowing in Australia. In an 1890 letter, Warre wrote to Halcomb stating that “the idea was accepted by them with alacrity” and that they were “proud of the opportunity afforded them of showing their brotherhood, goodwill and interest in the welfare of their kinsmen in the antipodes”.

The Oxford and Cambridge Challenge Cup was sent out to Australia in time for the 1893 competition, where it was competed for and won by Melbourne.

The Cup has scenes of both Cambridge and Oxford engraved on the sides, pictures of rowing along with floral emblems of the countries of England, Scotland and Wales. The Angel on the top is pictured in the traditional pose of the Toast to Rowing. This long standing and traditional toast is afforded the winners of the Challenge Cup.

The Women’s Eight Champions compete for the Professor Godfrey Tanner Cup. The first winners in 1978 were University of Melbourne.

The Professor Godfrey Tanner Cup

Whereas in the beginning, only three universities competed, nowadays all the other Australian universities send crews for the Cup.

Louis Petrin lives in Sydney, Australia, and enjoys all that the good waters there offer. He rows for the Drummoyne Rowing Club and is part of a crew called the Grumpy Oar Men. The crew started 4 years ago joining fathers rowing at a corporate regatta to raise funds for their daughter’s school rowing programme. Louis is also became a Boat Race Official to give back something to the sport that has given his daughter, Nicole, six memorable years as she continues to row for Sydney University. Louis has a love of history which has lead him to collect books on rowing (300) as well as trophies and memorabilia.

Easy To Pick A Crew

The London RC’s eight competing on the Yarra River, Melbourne, in 1934. The crew, who was racing in the Grand Challenge Cup in the Australian Henley, had Dermot St John Gogarty as coach. Gogarty also raced on the Yarra, but when he was in the lead, his shell sunk. The photograph is from Chris Dodd’s book about the London RC, Water Boiling Aft.

In yesterday’s entry on HTBS, Tim Koch wrote about Dermot St John Gogarty’s homage to Rudyard Kipling and his poem “If”. Tim asks for more information about Gogarty. In a comment the same day, Greg Denieffe gives some information about Gogarty. Greg replied that Gogarty was “born in 1908, […] the second son of Oliver St. John Gogarty, the Irish poet, author & Senator (Wikipedia has a good entry on him). Dermot was a well known architect who went to Pembroke College, Cambridge and was a rowing coach at University College, Dublin. He coached their maiden eight in 1933 to wins at Bann and Derry.” Greg also writes that it would be nice with some more information on his rowing connections at Pembroke and UCD.

I am happy to report that I have found some additional information about Dermot St John Gogarty and his rowing and coaching career.

After leaving Pembroke College, Gogarty joined the London Rowing Club and rowed in two Grand races in 1931 and 1932, winning the Cup in 1931. In Chris Dodd’s eminent Water Boiling Aft: London Rowing Club The First 150 Years, 1856-2006 (2006) it states that “The 1930s was a golden age for London at Henley, and a decade marked by expeditions to Paris, Copenhagen, Denmark, Portugal and Australia.” In 1934, for the centenary regatta of Henley-on-Yarra, Melbourne, London RC received an invitation and decided to go. With Gogarty as coach, seven oarsmen plus the cox boarded the Ormonde which set sail for Australia. The eighth oarsman, Donald Wilson, an Australian, was already in Australia and was ordered to get fit.

Dodd tells an entertaining story about the Londoners’ voyage to Australia in his book. On the web, I actually also found an article about Gogarty, published in the Melbourne’ newspaper The Argus on Saturday, 13 October 1934. Under a head-line that reads: “Easy to Pick a Crew" -

“Take four Loyalists, add four Republicans, and you will have the ideal rowing eight. Mr. Dermot St. John Gogarty, coach of the London Rowing Club, comes from Dublin, and the “recipe” is his. “You put the Loyalists on one side of the boat, the Republicans on the other, and the result is a tough crew,” he explains. It is not so easy to select an English eight. Mr. Gogarth did some hard thinking on the way out to Australia. One day – it was in the Indian Ocean – he had an inspiration. It dawned upon him that he had two Australians in the crew. By seating them on one side of the boat it was easy to fix the rest of the crew.

“Gogarty entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1927, and obtained a diploma in architecture four years later. He did a great deal of rowing, and although selected in trail crews for Cambridge, he never obtained a seat. As a member of the London club, he rowed in the 1931 and 1932 Grand Challenge Cup races at Royal Henley, being successful in the 1931 eight. For the last Royal Henley, he coached Trinity College, Dublin, for the Ladies’ Challenge Plate, and the crew was defeated in the final by only 3ft. in record time for the race.

“Mr. Gogarth is a keen fisherman, particularly for trout. He will be sculling at Henley in the Yarra Challenge Cup race.”

One thing differs from the information in Dodd’s book and the newspaper article: Dodd has it that only Wilson was Australian, while the article says Gogarty had two Australians in his crew.

So, how did the English oarsmen do ‘down under’? In the Grand Challenge Cup, London beat the Hawthorn Rowing Club in their first heat, Richmond Rowing Club in the semifinal, and won by four lengths over Wanganui of New Zealand in the final. And how did Coach Gogarty do in the sculls? Dodd writes, Gogarty “met with disaster in the first heat when his boat suddenly broke in half when he was in the lead”. Dodd continues to write, “A week later, London won the seven-abreast two-and-a-half mile Victoria State Championships by thirteen lengths in 14 minutes 20 seconds. Second-placed Melbourne University were awarded the state title.”

Some questions remains, though, Gogarty’s rowing connections at Pembroke and UCD, and did he write any more rowing poems?