Battles with the Blues

Tim Koch writes:

The Oxford and Cambridge Tideway fixture season is in full swing with the men’s and women’s Blue Boats taking on various challengers over the Thames Championship Course. Unfortunately, I have not been able to post coverage of these as soon as I would have wished (this is due to my employers expecting me to do what they pay me for, a sad state of affairs). I have previously reported on the races between Oxford and Molesey women on 1 March and now, a little late, can bring you coverage of the Cambridge and Thames women’s races of 2 March and, from the men, the Oxford v German Under-23s clash held on 8 March

(Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

2 March: Cambridge women passing the Mile Post, the monument to the great Cambridge coach, Steve Fairbairn. The Highland Cow in the left middle ground must be lost.

Tony Reynolds (Regional Rowing Safety Adviser), Ann-Louise Morgan (Race Director) and Judith Packer (Umpire) survey the presently unpredictable Thames.

CUWBC and Thames RC did two races, both between the Boat Race start (above Putney Bridge) and Hammersmith Bridge, about forty per cent of the full course. The first piece was a walkover for Cambridge who went off strong, immediately went in front, were a length up before the end of Putney Embankment and continued to extend their lead to the finish.

Thames in an embarrassing position in front of their club house.

Passing Harrods and approaching the finish at Hammersmith Bridge.

Rob Baker, CUWBC Chief Coach.

The second piece was a very different race. Both crews went off well and were initially level. By the time they approached the football ground, Cambridge were a couple of seats up but it was still anyone’s race. As the bend worked in favour of Thames (on Middlesex), they drew level and were for a brief time in the lead. Excitement was added when both boats moved together, which produced the threat of a clash, and by the water being very rough, it became a real test of boatmanship. Ultimately however, Cambridge showed their class and moved ahead and away from their opposition.

D-R-A-W! Cambridge on their first stroke.

Cambridge go up.

Thames go up.

Cambridge pull away.

The 8 March saw a German Under-23 crew take on OUBC. While the Germans were big lads with international experience, it was a lot to ask them to take on a crew like Oxford, particularly with three Olympic medalists (Malcolm Howard, Constantine Louloudis and Storm Uru) on board.

Oxford. Bow: Storm Uru, 2: Chris Fairweather, 3: Karl Hudspith, 4: Tom Swartz, 5: Malcolm Howard, 6: Michael DiSanto, 7: Sam O’Connor, Stroke: Constantine Louloudis, Cox: Laurence Harvey.

Germany, Under-23 and Under Pressure. Bow: Jonas Wiesen, 2: Finn Knuppel, 3: Malte Daberkow, 4: Maximilian Korge, 5: Johannes Weissenfeld, 6: Arne Schwiethal, 7: Ole Schwiethal, Stroke: Eike Kutzki, Cox: Torben Johannesen.

Oxford will be using the same boat that they used last year, the Empacher Acer, named after the late Acer Nethrcott.

The press launch was full but I was lucky enough to get a seat in the umpire’s launch. In the stern was, on the left, Peter McConnell, Boat Race Archivist and the man who writes the excellent race reports that appear on the Boat Race website and, on the right, Liz Box of the Boat Race Company. Among many other things, Liz Tweets the progress of the races for @theboatrace. She is well qualified to do this as she coxed Goldie in 2010 and CUBC in 2011.

The first piece was from the Boat Race start to Chiswick Steps. Underrating the visitors for most of the way, a composed Oxford led a rushed-looking German crew by half a length by the end of Putney Embankment. By Barn Elms the lead was over a length and this continued to grow in the approach to Hammersmith Bridge. The pictures tell the story.

Germany (left) and Oxford (right) at the end of Putney Embankment. Umpire Phelps was kept busy.

Both crews went wide at Hammersmith Bridge as they had just taken avoiding action around another boat.

Germany trails Oxford near the finish above Chiswick Eyot.

The second piece from below the Chiswick crossing to the Boat Race finish was more exciting, the Germans having a length start. Peter McConnell’s report on the Boat Race website captures it succinctly:

Oxford got off slightly quicker, pulling back half of the German advantage within the first 30 strokes. The Germans were tenacious on this occasion though, keeping the rate at 37 and with the advantage of the Surrey bend made a competitive race of it. However Oxford’s cohesion and power saw them creep back onto terms, man by man. At Barnes Bridge the lead was down to a canvas, then at the apex of the bend Oxford accelerated, going the long way round with a decisive move seeing them take a length out of the Germans in 20 strokes. Soon there was clear water with Oxford’s lead increasing with every stroke to 4 lengths at the finish.

The beginning of the second piece with Germany having a one-boat length start.

Approaching Barnes Bridge, Oxford creeping back.

At the finish, a four-length lead to Oxford. Legendary Oxford coach Dan Topolski (right) looks on.

Oxford rehydrate by The Bandstand on Duke’s Meadows.

A full timetable of all of the fixtures for the Men and the Women is here. The Newton Women’s Boat Race takes place on 30 March and The BNY Mellon Boat Race on 6 April.

The First Englishman….

A rare photograph of Hermann Barrelet, France, the first Olympic champion in the single sculls.*

On 25-26 August, 1900, was the first Olympic rowing regatta. Saint George Ashe of Thames RC wrote history when he, as the first Englishman, represented his country in the first ever Olympic rowing regatta, held on the river Seine in Paris. (There was supposed to have been a rowing regatta at the Olympic Games in Athens four years earlier, but it was cancelled due to bad weather.) Saint George Ashe, who was the only English oarsman competing in Paris, easily won his first heat in the single sculls. In the third heat, Louis Prével, who had rowed in the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley earlier that summer, just like Saint George Ashe who was the runner up that year, won his heat. Both scullers advanced to the semifinals. In his semifinal heat, Ashe came in third, which technically meant that he was kicked out of further advancement. However, he protested – no records are telling us why – whereupon the French organisers allowed him to advance to the final. Prével also won his semifinal heat and proceeded to the final, where he was interfered and capsized before crossing the finish line. The Frenchmen Hermann Barrelet and André Gaudin took the Olympic gold and silver, respectively, while Ashe took the bronze medal – Great Britain’s first rowing medal in the Olympic Games. Although, it is probably more correct to say that the Englishman took the third place as no bronze medal was handed out at the Olympics at that time.

Saint George Ashe competed several times in the Diamonds, but never took the cup. He did, however, take the Wingfield Sculls in 1904. Read more about him here (correction, he was 51 when he died, not 49 as the Wikipedia text says).

*There seems to be no photographs of Saint George Ashe, therefore a picture of the first Olympic champion in the single sculls will have to do!

The Oarsmen’s Cenotaphs*

The Cenotaph in London, the United Kingdom’s primary national war memorial. In years gone by, men raised their hats when passing it. Picture: Arpingstone/Wikipedia.

Tim Koch writes:

The 11th November is a memorial day observed in many countries around the world to remember the members of their armed forces killed in war. While the poignancy of remembering on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is very obvious, in some nations the day on which the major ceremonies of remembrance take place has shifted over the years. In the United Kingdom the main observance is now on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday of November (though observance of the two minutes silence on the 11th seems to have increased in recent years). Australia has joined New Zealand in putting more importance on ANZAC Day, 25th April. While the United States observes Veterans’ Day on 11th November, it is Memorial Day in May that is now the focus of national observance. Canada keeps the 11th November as Remembrance Day and as a national holiday. ‘Poppy Day’ is especially relevant here as it was a Canadian, John McCrae, who wrote the poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’ which resulted in the poppy becoming the powerful symbol that it is today.

Hugh Riviere’s In The Golden Days which forms part of the War Memorial at Thames Rowing Club.

HTBS has written on the subject of rowing clubs and War Memorials many times before. We have covered the monuments of British clubs Vesta, Marlow, Thames and Auriol and Kensington. Further afield, we have written about the impressive plaque in Vancouver Rowing Club in Canada and the unusual memorial to the oarsmen of the four Nottingham clubs. I thought that we may have exhausted the subject until I discovered the ‘Monument Australia’ website. To quote its home page:

The Monument Australia website is a historical and educational research site which records the public monuments and memorials in all Australian States and Territories under various themes.... Monuments and memorials reflect important values within the community.... and this website aims to help in the preservation of this aspect of the cultural history of Australia.

Naturally, I put ‘rowing’ in to the search facility and, while many results were not relevant, there were five rowing club War Memorials that could be termed ‘Cenotaphs’, all from the state of Victoria.

The Barwon War Memorial. Picture: Nancy Alford/Monument Australia.

A broken column is the memorial for Barwon Rowing Club. It can symbolise a fallen leader or unfinished work and was used on tombs for those whose life was deemed cut short.

The Bairnsdale Memorial. Picture: Graeme Saunders/Monument Australia.

The Bairnsdale Rowing Club War Memorial is an obelisk dedicated to the fifty-seven enlisted and fallen members of the Club who served in the First World War.

The Hawthorn’s Memorial. Picture: Kent Watson/Monument Australia.

A blunt and stereotypical Australian inscription on the Hawthorn Rowing Club memorial states ‘They fought. They fell’.

Alexandra Gardens showing the Yarra River & Melbourne City Skyline. The Judges’ Box mentioned below is on the far end of the left bank. Picture by Donaldytong/Wikipedia.

The city of Melbourne has two monuments to fallen oarsmen and they are both, I think, unique. They are the Victorian Rowing Association Memorial and the Victorian Rowing Association Judging Box. Both are situated in Alexandra Gardens on the south bank of the Yarra River. This is Australia’s equivalent to Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row or London’s Putney Embankment as it is home to seven rowing clubs. They are Melbourne University BC (1859), Melbourne RC (1862), Richmond RC (1863), Banks RC (1865), Yarra Yarra RC (1871), Mercantile RC (1880) and La Trobe University RC (1969). The Henley-on-Yarra Regatta started here in 1904 and, until the Second World War, was a very important rowing and social occasion with attendance peaking at 300,000 in 1925. Film evidence from 1933 is here.

Boathouses along Alexandra Gardens. Picture: Tony Hodder.

The Victoria Rowing Association Memorial lists 320 rowers from 30 Victorian clubs who died in the First World War. There were 2,100 members of the VRA in 1914 and more than half of them enlisted. Of these, nearly a third were killed. The monument has been recently restored and a rededication service was conducted at the Australian Henley Regatta on 23 February, 2013.

The VRA ‘Oarsmen’s Cenotaph’. Picture: Tony Hodder.

Hopefully the 1914-1918 Oarsmen’s Memorial Judges’ Box just down from the boathouses near the finish line of the regatta will soon merit restoration as well.

The 1930 built Judges’ Box. Picture: Graeme Saunders / Monument Australia.

The Box shows its age. Picture: Tony Hodder.

As an aside, there is an interesting (though not absolutely proven) story surrounding the timing of the formal ending of hostilities on 11th November 1918. The Armistice was signed in a railway carriage, 60km north of Paris. Britain’s official delegate, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, was ordered by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to have the end of fighting set for 3pm to coincide with a sitting of the British House of Commons. This would allow Lloyd George to theatrically make the announcement to an assembled and expectant Parliament and to bask in the reflected glory of victory. Admiral Wemyss allegedly thought that the delay would cause more unnecessary killing and felt that 11am, ‘the eleventh hour’, had a certain pathos. He was right.

*Cenotaph: A monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere.

It’s Movember again!

Two nice-looking chaps with moustaches: A. H. Cloutte and J. Beresford, with the 'demon' attacking the strokeside oar. Despite that, the Thames oarsmen did not have a problem winning the 1911 Silver Goblets.

Today it’s the first of Movember, the first day in the month when we are to celebrate the moustache. Well, it’s actually a global campaign to raise funds for men’s health, especially to fight prostate and testicular cancers. Celebrating Movember has been a great deal among rowers, men and women, in Great Britain, and British Rowing has stood behind the campaign in earlier years and is doing so again this year.

However, the Mo-Movement is growing, just like your moustaches should do this month, and more and more men and women are joining in by donating money for this good cause. Here is the official website “Movember 13” in the USA.

Just like last year when I wrote about this on HTBS, I had to go back in time to find some oarsmen with some stylish ‘Mos’, and on top you see Arthur Cloutte and Julius ‘Berry’ Beresford (bow) of Thames RC, winners of the 1911 Silver Goblets at Henley. This photograph has been famous as the ‘Demon picture’, a devil ‘attacking’ the stokeside oar.

My children and I supporting Movember (photograph taken yesterday, just before Halloween's trick-or-treating).

To round off this piece, allow me to quote myself from last year:

‘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!’

Row Correctly on the Erg

I am now regularly back on the erg to minimize the 'bathing ring' I have around my waist (where did it come from?). I normally do these workouts at the local YMCA which recently got brand new rowing machines. I am not at all an expert on rowing on the erg, but it hurts to see my fellow, non-rowers at the Y massacre themselves and the rowing machines by going back and forth just pulling and pulling on the handle, with their knees bent or straight at the wrong time in the rowing cycle. I want to call out: 'Hold on, Sir/Madam, but please stop before you really hurt yourself' - but, of course, I say nothing.

Above is a great step-by-step rowing the erg video with coach Lubo Kisiov of Thames Rowing Club which will help both beginners and more advanced rowers to row correctly on the erg. Good luck!

Lions not Donkeys

An early First World War recruitment poster. There was no official ‘Oarsman's Battalion’ but some crews joined their local regiment en masse. The idea that war was ‘the greater game’ could not have lasted very long.

Tim Koch writes from London,

This week marks the 99th Anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The actual day is open to choice. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July, 1914. Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France on 2 August. Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August.

During the period 1914 to 1918, five million British men served in the armed forces. Initially they were all volunteers and conscription was not introduced until seventeen months into the conflict. The poplar view of the early months of the war is of young men desperate to join up in case hostilities ended before they could take part in a great adventure. Adventure may not have been everyone’s reason for joining the ‘citizens’ army’ as there was also enormous peer pressure from workplaces, friends, families, sports clubs, schools, colleges and social groups. Whatever their reasons, oarsmen would have been among the first to join up. They were young and fit and had a bond with their crew mates that only one of the ultimate team sports can produce. Sadly, for many the 1914 rowing season was to be their last.

My own club, now called Auriol Kensington, has pictures of two 1914 crews on its walls. The Kensington Junior Eight that won at Molesey lost four members by 1918 and the Auriol eight that raced at Henley lost three. In all, both clubs lost a total of twenty-four men who were members at the outbreak of the War. This would not be untypical.

The memorials subsequently erected to by clubs to remember their crew mates killed is a subject that HTBS has covered several times. We have noted those in Thames RC, Auriol Kensington RC, Vesta RC, and Marlow RC. While it is common for British rowing clubs have war memorials, on my recent visit to Vancouver Rowing Club (VRC) in Canada, I was reminded of the sacrifices made by men from what was then the British Empire. VRC has a bronze plaque listing the names of the 164 men who volunteered for active service including the 38 who were wounded and the 38 who were killed, a death rate of twenty-three per cent.

The list of those members of Vancouver RC who served in the 1914-1918 War. Those marked with a star were killed, those marked with a bar were wounded. A similar memorial exists for the 1939-1945 War. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Back home, I have recently become aware of an oarsmen’s memorial that has two differences to any others that I know of in the UK. First, it commemorates those rowers killed not from a club but from a city, and second, it is sited outside, not in a clubhouse.

The Nottingham Oarsmen’s War Memorial.

Detail from the Nottingham Memorial.

Trent Bridge crosses the River Trent in the city of Nottingham in the English East Midlands. On the north side of the bridge is a First World War memorial to fifty-five men of the four rowing clubs that existed in the city at that time. They were Nottingham Union RC, Nottingham RC (1862), Nottingham Boat Club (1894) and Nottingham Britannia RC (1869). The first two amalgamated in 1946 to form Nottingham and Union Rowing Club while the second two amalgamated in 2006 to form Nottingham Rowing Club (along with Nottingham Schools Rowing Association and the Nottinghamshire County Rowing Association).

The Memorial and a wider view of its place over the River Trent.

Examining the military ranks listed on the memorial is interesting and perhaps gives some indication of the social makeup of the Nottingham clubs. The fifty-five are made up of fourteen private soldiers, five non-commissioned officers (sergeants and corporals), twenty-eight 2nd Lieutenants and Lieutenants, five captains and three majors. Thus half were the most junior commissioned officers, that is 2nd lieutenants and lieutenants, men who led a platoon of fifty soldiers.

In his 2010 book, Six Weeks –  The Short & Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), John Lewis-Stempel attempts to disassociate the junior officers from the seemingly idiotic high ranking officers who appeared to have no ideas beyond sending wave after wave of men headlong into machine gun fire (‘lions led by donkeys’). Lewis-Stempel says that the two most junior officer ranks often suffered a casualty rate twice that of private soldiers and that their average life expectancy on the front line was six weeks. Until 1917 they mostly came from public (which in the UK means private) schools. The top fee paying schools had casualty rates of twenty per cent. In four years, 1,157 Old Etonians were killed (though as the War went on and the ‘officer class’ was rapidly decimated, ‘temporary gentlemen’ from middle and working class backgrounds had to fill the void).

One of forty-two Rowing Blues killed in the First World War: Captain W.H. Chapman rowed for  Cambridge in 1899, 1902 and 1903. He was killed at the Dardanelles in 1915.

That the upper classes suffered disproportionally can also be seen in the casualty rates of those oarsmen who were obviously from socially privileged backgrounds. This forum lists the forty-two Oxford and Cambridge Rowing Blues who were killed, all of them officers. The book Henley Races by Sir Theodore Cook (Oxford University Press 1919) is available online and lists the two hundred and seventy Henley competitors who are known to have died. In both lists, half were 2nd Lieutenants and Lieutenants with thirty per cent holding the rank of captain. The Oxford-Cambridge split is exactly half. A deadly noblesse oblige.

My thanks to Ian Scothern for taking the Nottingham pictures for me. Also, some may have noticed the second name on the memorial, that of Albert Ball VC, a First World War ‘Ace’. I am investigating further but I suspect that Ball’s connection with NRC may have been somewhat tenuous.

Steve, Jack and Bossie Found in Cyberspace

Tim Koch writes,

Typing ‘rowing’ into the YouTube search engine and then ploughing through the results is rather like rowing itself – you have to do an awful lot of dull and sometimes painful work in order to get gold. After a lot of ‘internet steady state’ I recently experienced the thrill of a big win. A commercial company called Huntley Film Archives has put up an eleven-minute film made at Thames Rowing Club in 1923 or 1924 (not ‘1930s’ as they state). It is particularly exciting for two reasons. Firstly, it shows three of the greatest Putney personalities of the inter war period and secondly, it shows rowing of a very high standard in slow motion and with very close up shots, both unusual for the time. Unfortunately, the internet version is in low resolution and has a copyright ‘watermark’ but the original film held in the Huntley Archive is undoubtedly a sharp 16mm or even 35mm print.

The start to 48 seconds shows the exterior of Thames Rowing Club at Putney with crews leaving the boathouse and other crews rowing past.

After this there is a ten-second (slightly self-conscious) shot of the great coach, Steve Fairbairn, 1862-1938 (not ‘Fairburn’ as stated).

Steve Fairbairn as depicted on the Mile Post.

Between 58 seconds and 1 minute 17 seconds the film shows the Thames RC ‘First Eight’ for 1923 with the Henley Grand Challenge Cup. The crew was C.G. Chandler, R.G. Bare, J. Beresford Jnr, C.H. Rew, A.F. Long, K.C. Wilson, H.L Holman, S.I. Fairbairn and J. Godwin.

From 1 min 17 sec to 5 min 10 sec there are instructional sequences for sweep rowing showing TRC eights on the water between Putney and Hammersmith. As I have already said, it was unusual for cameramen of the period to get so close to the action. This was not shot on a long lens to achieve the close ups, if it had been the picture would be much more unstable and would have a reduced depth of field. The caption at 3 min 40 ecs says ‘There are not many eights that would bear inspection from the Ultra Rapid ‘. This was British Pathe’s slow motion camera which they were obviously very proud of and which they used in many sporting films. We must assume that these sequences show the classic ‘Fairbairn Method’ of rowing as approved by the master himself.

Between 5 min 10 sec and 6 min 35 sec there are marvellous shots of Jack Beresford Jnr. (1899-1977; on the left), Britain’s greatest sculler of the inter war period. The film is perhaps even better shot than the sweep rowing material. The cameraman must have been standing on the bow of a close-following (perhaps overlapping) launch to get a wonderful high shooting angle of Beresford in his single scull. The caption at 5 min 45 sec says ‘It’s obvious why he is a champion’ and this is very true. The style may not be what we would use today but note the speed with which his legs go down.

From 6 min 35 sec we have ‘the don’ts of sculling’, very gamely illustrated by the great coach, boat builder and father of champions, John Thomas Phelps (1877-1942), better known as ‘(Young) Bossie Phelps’ – not ‘Bossy’ as stated. I have never seen pictures (still or moving) of Bossie in a boat before.

Bossie Phelp

The film ends with a caption stating something that, if it was true in 1923, it is still true now:

If you contemplate rowing

- Remember -

When you know All about it you will be too old to do it.

Tim Koch: Facing The Press

The CUBC Press Conference. Steve Trapmore (Coach), George Nash (President and No. 5) and Henry Fieldman (Cox).

HTBS’s Tim Koch writes from the Boat Race Media Centre,

Yesterday, the final pre-Boat Race press conference was held at the ‘Media Centre’ (otherwise known as Thames Rowing Club), two days before the big event. These are inherently unsatisfactory occasions as the chosen representatives of the two boat clubs are very unlikely to say anything but that they are well prepared and confident. If they have any doubts, they are not going to share them with the wider world – though this would make for a much more interesting event. Even when were given the chance to ‘trash talk’ their opponents (like boxers at a weigh-in) they decline the opportunity (when Sean Bowden was asked what he thought of the fact that Oxford were the favourites, he replied in words to the effect that he did not gamble). Fortunately, the Umpires, Matthew Pinsent and Boris Rankov, were slightly more informative.

Sir Matthew Pinsent (Boat Race Umpire) and Professor Boris Rankov (Reserve Race Umpire).

Matthew was asked if any changes had been made following last year’s incident when a protester swam into the path of the race causing it to be restarted after a long delay. He declined to talk about security but said that the Boat Race Umpires’ Panel had analysed the incident in great detail and decided that the existing rules were adequate and that the race will not be run differently. The only change would be that, if the race was obstructed for whatever reason, the procedure would be:

1) To stop the race.

2) For the umpire and the crews to pass what the rules refer to as an ‘outside agency’ i.e. an obstruction in the water such as a person or an inanimate object such as a log. If the ‘outside agency’ was a person he or she would not be picked up by the umpire's boat (as happened last year).

3) Once the obstruction was passed the race would be restarted as quickly as possible with both crews in the relative positions that they held when the race was halted (last year the crews were sent back to the point where the race had been stopped and had to wait a long time for the churned up water to subside). When the obstruction was passed it would no longer be the umpire’s concern and what the following flotilla did would depend on the prevailing circumstances.

The OUBC Press Conference. Sean Bowden (Coach), Alex Davidson (President and No. 3) and Oskar Zorrilla (Cox).

Matthew stressed that none of this was a criticism of the 2012 Umpire, John Garrett, who had to deal with an unprecedented situation. He also understood that the general public wants excitement but that he, as the umpire, wants a clean race. The Boat Race is, Matthew continued, a most complicated and unpredictable event. The ‘acid test’ is for him to be able to get out at the finish and be ‘pretty much ignored’ so he can ‘slip off to the bar’. Boris Rankov added that ‘the umpires are the only people involved who cannot win’. Responding to an attempt to draw him on the subject of security, Matthew said that he would not like it if the public were denied access to the river. He held that among the joys of the event are the facts that it is free, that the riverbanks are packed and that the pubs are full.

I feel that this year the biggest defence against idiot swimmers may not be the fast boats of the Royal Marines stationed along the course, but will be the freezing temperatures. A bigger danger may be from debris swept into the river by recent high tides. Strangely, another problem may be an attack by angry otters.

Rowing History Footnote: The Race that Ended with a Fight

Thames RC's William Fernie and ‘Bogie’ Bogle trying to row each other round while they are in the lead in the final of the 1898 Silver Goblets, where they easily beat ‘Old Hutch’ and Steve Fairbairn of Jesus College BC. A race that ended with a fist fight....

The Thames Rowing Club was founded in 1860 as the City of London Rowing Club. At a meeting in February 1862, the name of the club was changed to the Thames Rowing Club. In 1866, the Thames RC had acquired a boathouse at Putney which belonged to the boat builder William Styles of Isleworth. Manager for the boathouse was William East, Sr., William ‘Bill’ East’s father. The professional champion Bill East had strong connections to Cambridge University BC as he acted as their ‘waterman’, taking the Light Blue coxes in a boat for many years to show them how to steer on the sometimes unruly waters of the Thames with its tides and streams between Putney and Mortlake.

With Bill East around Thames RC, many of Cambridge’s rowers went to the club after they left the university and got a job in the city. This was what happened in 1898 when some Trinity Hall oarsmen, William Fernie, William Bieber and Hunting Howell, joined the club. Some ‘Hall’ rowers, including Richard Croft, were already members. Croft took the Colquhoun Sculls in 1893 and the Lowe Double Sculls in 1894 (together with Adam Bell), and he also rowed in the Hall’s first eight winning the Head in 1894 (with Fernie and Bieber) and in 1895 (with Fernie, Bieber and Howell). Also the Hall’s David Campbell-Muir, who got his Blue at the same time as Howell, would become a member of the club.

For the 1898 Silver Goblets at Henley, Fernie raced in the pair with A. ‘Bogie’ Bogle who was ‘a very difficult and aggressive crew member’ Geoffrey Page writes in his history book on the Thames RC, Hear The Boat Sing (1991). For some unknown reason Bogie was not on speaking terms with his partner in the boat on the day of the final, where they were going to race against A. M. Hutchinson ‘Old Hutch’ and Steve Fairbairn of Jesus College BC (yes, the famous coach to be). On the way to the start, Bogie and Fernie tried to pull each other round which they continued to do during the race. Old Hutch and Fairbairn took an early lead at a high rate which was doomed to fail. The Thames pair soon was in the front and won comfortably.

Page writes: ‘They did not stop at the line. Legend has it that they continued to Marsh Lock, where they got out and fought it out on the bank. It is not recorded who won the fight, but the boat was left for the boatman to collect.’

Colonel F. C. Ricardo was Toad?

Colonel F. C. Ricardo coaching on horseback at Henley.

Almost two weeks ago, Tim Koch wrote about coaching crews on the Isis and Cam from horseback.

In my little collection of rowing memorabilia, I have a page from The Sketch of 5 July, 1899, with a photograph of a coach training a crew at Henley from horseback and with a megaphone. Below the photograph it says “Colonel Ricardo coaching the St. George Hospital Four”. I have to confess that I have not heard about a ‘Colonel Ricardo’, so I started a little investigation about this man. Here is what I found:

Francis Cecil Ricardo was born on 3 July 1852 in London and died on 17 June 1924 at his house Lullebrook Manor, Cookham, Berkshire. He was the son of Percy Ricardo (1820-1892) and his wife Matilda Hensley (who died in 1880). Francis Cecil – who was called Cecil by his friends, but in later writing about him as an oarsman and officer was called ‘F. Ricardo’ or ‘F.C. Ricardo’ – studied at Eton where he rowed. He was in the Eton crews that won the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley in 1869 and 1870. In 1870 and 1871, Francis Cecil was Captain of the Boats and Keeper of the Field, the latter in non-Etonian language: Captain of the Field Game. In 1872, he joined the Grenadier Guards, where his older brother, Horace, was an officer. Horace, too, had studied and rowed at Eton and would also reach the rank of Colonel. While in the Grenadier Guards, Francis Cecil continued to row and joined Leander Club, according to his obituary in The Times. He married Marie Annie ‘May’, nee Littlefield, (who died in 1907).

In the 16 January, 1907, The Bystandard had an article about a fire in Colonel Ricardo's house, The Elm.

In Rudie Lehmann’s The Complete Oarsman (1908), W. H. 'Piggy' Eyre writes that in 1877 he rowed in a Thames RC’s eight which beat a ‘strong but not half fit Guards eight […] stroked by F. C. Ricardo.’ This was actually the first heat of the Grand Challenge Cup at the 1877 Henley Royal Regatta. Looking into the Henley record books, in the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guard’s crew was two Lieutenant Colonels at bow and 7, four Captains in 2, 3, 4 and 5 seat, and three Lieutenants at 6, stroke (Ricardo) and the cox. ‘The Guard crew led for a short distance, but were caught before reaching Remenham. At Fawley Thames led by half a length, clear below the Point, and won by a length and a half. Time 7 min. 37 sec.’ Piggy Eyre was in 7 seat in the Thames crew which in the final lost to London RC.

In the Ricardo’s obituary, published in The Times on 19 June, 1924, it states that: ‘Colonel Ricardo was active and generous in the service of his neighbours. He gave a parish hall, and was a great patron of Cookham and other regattas. During the war he was acting Chief Constable of Berkshire, and received the C.B.E. in 1920. He was made C.V.O. in 1902.’

There is an entry on Wikipedia about Ricardo where it states that he became the inspiration for Toad of Toad Hall in Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, who also lived in Cookham – remember Toad was a sculler in Grahame’s book, although not very successful one. Like Toad, Ricardo drove round the village in a yellow Rolls-Royce and would offer lifts to any residents he saw.

According to this blog both Toad and Colonel Ricardo were driving a yellow Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.