Stout for Sportsmen

Tim Koch writes:

Today, 17 March, is St. Patrick’s Day and many people, Sons of Erin or not, will mark this solemn religious occasion by drinking industrial quantities of Irish stout, most famously that produced by the ‘Guinness’ company. In the past, HTBS has produced several items noting rowing connections to the ‘black beer’ produced by the Dublin brewing family.

A summery of the rowing career of the company chairman, Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1967) was in this post of August 2010. Guinness won the Diamonds in 1895 and the Diamonds and the Wingfields in 1896.

Possibly due to the influence of Rupert, the company often included rowing in its frequently acclaimed advertising campaigns. In March 2010, Hélène Rémond shared some nice images she had found, and Greg Denieffe posted these in September 2013.

I recently came across another of the brewer’s advertisements with a rowing (or rather sculling) content, but this time in the form of a traditional celebrity endorsement rather than the clever graphics and slogans for which the company is most famous. On 6 July 1929 the ad posted below was run in the Illustrated London News.

Bert Barry’s Guinness endorsement (click to enlarge).

The text starts:

One man beats three. This is a unique feat in the history of rowing. H.A. Barry sculled over four miles: his opponents each raced only a third of the distance. Yet such was the strength and endurance of Barry that he beat each opponent in turn. In his letter on this page, Barry shows how sportsmen of every kind can improve their strength and endurance by drinking Guinness regularly.

In his endorsement Barry explains:

And there is no doubt that ‘Guinness Stout’ has done me a lot of good these last four years. It has built my muscles up wonderfully and has given me the necessary stamina – what I lacked before to stay a long distance at racing pace.

It is signed, H.A. (Bert) Barry, World and British Champion Sculler.

Advertising alcohol as a training aid for sportsmen may seem strange but this was a very different time. The 1912 Olympic sculling champion, Wally Kinnear, recommended Guinness and Champaign (‘Black Velvet’) as a remedy for over training. The old professionals would sometimes have a brandy and port on the start line as it ‘settled the stomach’. Much worse than associating alcohol with athletic success was the common idea of using sportsmen in cigarette advertising. ‘Camel’ cigarettes were especially famous for this – as this ad in Popular Mechanics of June 1935 shows.

Camels – ‘The mild cigarette the athletes smoke’. They include William Garfield ‘Bill’ Miller who came second in the coxless fours at the 1928 Olympics and second to Bobby Pearce in the single sculls in the 1932 Olympics. He was also U.S. Singles Champion, in 1930-1933. If he did actually smoke it is not surprising that a contemporary newspaper described him as ‘The husky Philadelphian’. The museum Mystic Seaport’s website describes another Bill Miller / Camel advertisement held by them though unfortunately there is no illustration. The handsome Miller was a natural choice for advertisers and, more harmlessly, he also endorsed Palmolive Shaving Cream.

Returning to Guinness, the advertisement does not make it absolutely clear but the ‘relay’ was a race from Putney to Mortlake with Barry sculling constantly over the whole distance but with a fresh opponent taking over from the previous challenger for every third of the course. Thus the race started conventionally but at Harrods a new sculler picked up the race with Barry while the original opposition to the Champion dropped out. There would be another change with a third sculler, perhaps around Chiswick Steps. I do not know if this stunt was done with the Guinness endorsement in mind or if it was something that the company picked up on after the event. However, thanks to the remarkable British Pathe website, we can see film of this possibly unique event.

RIVER RELAY RACE

Bert Barry

Herbert Arthur ‘Bert’ Barry (1902-1978) was the son of W.A. ‘Bill’ Barry (who won Doggetts in 1891 and was Professional Sculling Champion of England in 1898). Bert was a nephew of the great Ernest Barry and uncle of William L. ‘Bill’ Barry. Bert won Doggetts in 1925, and in 1927 he challenged the World Professional Sculling Champion, M.L. Goodsell, for his title. Strangely, the race took place in Vancouver, Canada, and not in Goodsell’s native Australia. The defending champion beat Barry convincingly. However, on a return match over the same course three months later, it was the Englishman who was victorious and he remained the unchallenged World Champion for nearly three years. Pathe has an especially good sound film of Bert sculling with his brother Lou around this period.

BERT BARRY

Bert with the statue of the great sculler Ned Hanlan in Toronto in 1934.

In May 1930, Bert lost the World title in his first defence to Ted Phelps, the first time in over fifty years that two Englishmen had contested for the World Sculling Championship. Bert also failed in the return match five months later. Perhaps he was not drinking enough Guinness?

Happy Arthur’s Day & the Discovery of Guinness’s lost Ad Campaigns

HTBS’s own Irishman, Greg Denieffe, writes,

It is not all going according to plan for this year’s Arthur's Day which falls on 26 September. This is the fifth occasion that the day has been celebrated since been first organised in 2009 to promote the 250th anniversary of the Dublin brewing company. However, leaving aside the controversy which you can read about here, there is always something for us rowing-heads to like about the advertising campaigns run by the company over the years.

HTBS posted a few examples on 22 March, 2010, and of course Rupert Guinness crops up in articles on a regular basis.

Above is an example from the 1973 programme for Dublin Metropolitan Regatta (my first Metro). The strange thing about this is that the coxswain is not drinking a manly pint but is enjoying what in Ireland is called a ‘glass’ and in England ‘a half’ and even that appears to be in a lady’s glass.

A far rarer advertisement comes from 1950 for a campaign that was never used.

This from David Hughes, who has written a book called Gilroy was good for Guinness:

This small poster is intended as a flyer for my new book Gilroy was good for Guinness which contains hundreds of never seen before original artwork images of Guinness adverts.

Since the early 20th century, Guinness advertising has been famous around the world for its distinctive imagery, humour and impact.

For over 30 years the creative force behind many of the most iconic and beloved campaigns were the artist John Gilroy. Mysteriously, in 1971 much of his work disappeared from the archive of S H Benson’s advertising agency. Now, through his investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, former Guinness brewer David Hughes has unearthed a vast portfolio of Gilroy’s previously unseen and unpublished canvases.

Three hundred posters, many featuring classic cars, new zoo animals, American views, Russian and German that were never commercially published – have now come to light.

This book explores the disappearance and reappearance of these extraordinary canvases, presents them in full colour, and tells the story of Gilroy, the man behind the advertising legacy.

Thanks to David HTBS can celebrate Arthur’s Day in style with a poster that Tom Weil might approve of!

The Sculling Earl To Be

The photograph above shows twenty-one year old Hon. Rupert Guinness (1874-1967), who was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. During the mid-1890s, he was chasing the Nickalls’ brothers for either the title in the Diamonds or the Wingfields. In 1895, Guinness (sculling for Leander) defeated Guy Nickalls with a length and a half to take the Diamond Sculls, but was over-powered by Guy’s brother Vivian some weeks later for the Wingfield Sculls. The previous year had ended with the same result, Vivian overcoming Rupert in the Wingfields. However, in 1896 Rupert Guinness did take both the Diamonds and the Wingfields, in the latter race beating Vivian Nickalls.

In his Life’s A Pudding (1939), Guy Nickalls writes about Guinness (by then the Earl of Iveagh) “Rupert Guinness, although not what any one would term a born sculler, confined himself to sculling and obtained useful proficiency by dint of long and careful practice with East.” East, that Nickalls is mentioning, is the professional oarsman William G. East, Doggett winner (1887), sculling champion of England (1891), and author of Rowing and Sculling (1904).

Rupert Guinness would later be elected president of Thames RC, and in 1927, he succeeded his father as Earl of Iveagh and as chairman of the family’s famous brewing company in Dublin. When Guinness was depicted by Spy for Vanity Fair in November 1905 (on the right), he had become a little rounder all-over. Earl of Iveagh is also mentioned in an entry by Tim Koch on 26 March 2010, and a follow-up entry on 27 March 2010, and Hélène Rémond's entry from 8 April 2010.