Toad, Tom, Jack and Billy!

The always alert Greg Denieffe writes,

Colonel 'Toad'

Everyone loves The Wind in the Willows and the recent post Colonel F. C. Ricardo was Toad? – by HTBS editor Göran R Buckhorn reminded me that there are numerous online personality quizzes that can help you decided what character in the book you are. The one on quibblo.com satisfied my curiosity and revealed that I am in fact, Ratty (which I knew anyway!): “He is devoted to his interests, he loves nature and peacefulness. He is very intelligent and he is very outspoken and poetic”.

I would go as far as to say that you don’t need online quizzes to find out which character in the book someone is; a little people-watching in the Stewards Enclosure at Henley Royal Regatta soon reveals all!

Something else that was of interest to me in Göran’s post was the fact that ‘Toad’ was in the Eton crews that won the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley in 1869 and 1870, and he was Captain of the Boats at Eton in 1870 and 1871. All throughout 2011 and up to May of this year, I was researching the story of The Rowing Bunburys of Lisnavagh. This is the story of the McClintock-Bunbury family from Lisnavagh, Rathvilly, County Carlow, Ireland, who between them won the Ladies’ Plate seven times (1867, 1868 (2), 1869, 1870, 1896 and 1897), all for Eton College; the Grand Challenge Cup once in 1871 for Oxford Etonians and had a seat in the Oxford crew in the 1871 Boat Race. The decorated pencil oars for seven of the Henley wins are now displayed in my home club – Carlow Rowing Club. The research of 6,000 words and numerous photographs rambles through the wins of Tom (later Lord Rathdonnell), his brother Jack and Tom’s son Billy and the characters they encountered and rowed with at Eton College. It was published recently in Carloviana, the journal of the Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society.

From “The Oarsman’s Farewell to his Oar” by R. C. Lehman (1901)

Many oars have I had – lo! These cups are a token –
Since first a raw Freshman I splashed in a crew;
Their shafts may be warped and their blades may be broken,
But their staunchness lived on to be centered in you.
Lo! All these old oars that I lost with or won with
Return to remind me of failure or fame.
The traditions are yours of those blades I have done with;
The wood may have changed, but the soul is the same.

Four of the seven McClintock-Bunbury oars on display in Carlow Rowing Club.

1869 Ladies’ Plate winning oar with F. C. Ricardo at ‘2’.

1870 Ladies’ Plate winning oar with F. C. Ricardo at ‘4’.

Eton’s best-known holiday takes place on the so called ‘Fourth of June’, a celebration of the birthday of King George III. The day is celebrated with the Procession of Boats, in which the top rowing crews from the top four years row past in vintage wooden rowing boats. The ‘Fourth of June’ is no longer celebrated on 4 June, but on the Wednesday before the first weekend of June. The first boat in the procession is the ten-oar Monarch. This is followed by the rest of the fleet in the following order and seniority of crew; Victory, Prince of Wales, Britannia, Thetis, Hibernia, St. George, Alexandra, Defiance and finally Dreadnought. There are two excellent articles by Tim Koch on the procession on HTBS. The entry dated the 11 May 2010  is called Etonians and their Boaters and that on the 5 June 2011 is called Tim Koch on the 2011 Eton’s Procession of Boats.

The above photograph originally appeared in Vivian Nickalls’ autobiography Oars, Wars and Horses which was published in 1932. It reappeared on page 50 in Peter Mallory’s epic 2,500 page The Sport of Rowing in 2011. Colonel F. C. Ricardo is seated left, beside him, Tom Bunbury (Lord Rathdonnell) is seated center, being the elder “Captain” with his son Billy standing on the right. Unfortunately, there appears to be two errors in the caption both of which relate to the Bunburys. The Eton Registers published in 1901 and 1906 list Tom as Captain of the Boats in 1868 (not 1863) and J. L. Philips as Captain of the Boats in 1897 and not Billy. It is still a wonderful picture and I am very grateful to Peter for the scan of the photograph.

Vivian Nickalls: A Successful Sculler

Two of the most famous rowing brothers in Britain are without doubt Vivian and Guy Nickalls. Of the two, Guy (1866-1935) got most attention by contemporary press, mainly because of his frank ways and for being outspoken, which would get him in constant trouble, both at home and abroad. Vivian Nickalls (1871-1947), who was the younger of the two brothers, was maybe not as successful as an oarsman, but through the years he would collect an extensive amount of medals, cups, and awards.

Vivian took the Diamond Challenge Cup at Henley in 1891. He also won the Wingfield Sculls in 1892, 1894, and 1895 (the latter year is when the photo above is taken). Vivian was very successful at Henley in the Silver Goblets and Nickalls' Cup, winning the Cup in 1892 and 1893 with William A.L. Fletcher, and with his brother Guy in 1894, 1895, and 1896. In 1895, to celebrate his two sons second win together in the Silver Goblets, Tom Nickalls donated the Nickalls' Challenge Cup.

Both Nickalls brothers would later in life go to the USA to coach rowing. While Guy would coach Yale - "Their paddling is bad, their rowing, worse." (about his 1916 crew) -, Vivian would coach the University of Pennsylvania and the Detroit Boat Club. Both Vivian and Guy returned to Britain to serve in the Army during First World War. They would also write to highly entertaining autobiographies, Vivian's Oars, Wars and Horses (1932) and Guy's posthumous published Life's a Pudding (1939).

Wingfield Sculls Centenary Dinner Menu

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

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

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

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

The Rowing English Gentleman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued...