Rowers List 2: Göran Buckhorn

Hunting Howell began to row at Trinity Hall in 1895 and took the same year the Grand, got his Blue in 1897, and won both the Diamonds and Wingfields in 1898 and 1899. Courtesy NRF ©

Time for more lists, now the two Top Ten Scullers, up until 1919 and the Top Ten Scullers, from 1920 to present time picked by yours truly. They were not easy to put together, so I had to cheat: the scullers are in alphabetic order, not necessarily ranked within the lists.

Alexander Alcée Casamajor

List IV - Top Ten British Scullers (up until 1919):

1.    E. Barry (p.)
2.    H. Blackstaffe
3.    A. A. Casamajor
4.    R. Chambers (p.)
5.    B. H. Howell
6.    F. S. Kelly
7.    W. Kinnear
8.    J. Lowndes
9.    G. Nickalls
10.  F. L. Playford

Runners-up: R. Guinness, H. Kelley (p.), and V. Nickalls

Tony Fox

List V - Top Ten British Scullers (from 1920 to present time):

1.    C. Baillieu
2.    J. Beresford Jnr.
3.    R. Burnell
4.    B. Bushnell
5.    A. Campbell
6.    T. Fox
7.    P. Haining

8.    E. Phelps (p.)
9.    S. Redgrave
10.  L. Southwood

Runners-up: T. Crooks, M. Hart, and M. Hunter

F. S. Kelly

Comments: Two foreigners have sneaked on to List IV, the American Benjamin Hunting Howell (1875-1953*) and the Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881-1916). Neither of these two gentlemen ever rowed in their home countries, Howell began to row at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Kelly at Eton, and later took up sculling at Balliol College, Oxford. After their studies had ended, Howell continued to row as a member of Thames RC and Kelly for Leander Club.

(p.) is indicating a ‘professional sculler’.

* In all information on the web (also Wikipedia), and in rowing books where he is mentioned, B. H. Howell's death date is always missing. Well, here it is: Benjamin Hunting Howell was born on 3 September 1875, died on 26 February 1953. Remember that you saw this information first on HTBS!

British Pathé & 1953 European Rowing Championships

In yesterday’s post on HTBS we referred to rowing historian Bill Miller’s great website Friends of Rowing History. Today, we are actually going back to Bill’s site, now to have a look at a newly published list, which for sure will interest those of you who like ‘vintage rowing video clips’. Bill has put together a wonderful list of rowing films from British Pathé. You can easily browse the following categories: US People/Events; Henley Royal Regatta; Women’s Rowing; International Racing; Equipment; Eton-Oxford-Cambridge; Doggett’s Coat & Badge Race; and Misc. Clips.

Go to the British Pathé list here.

Tony Fox

Below you will find two film clips from British Pathé that I picked specially for this entry, both dealing with the 1953 European Rowing Championships in Copenhagen, which were held on 14-16 August. Well, it says ‘Copenhagen’ – do not get fooled by the statue Den Lille Havfrue [The Little Mermaid] in the beginning of the first film – but the rowing championships were held outside of Copenhagen at the Gladsaxe rowing stadium at Lake Bagsværd. Among the spectators is King of Frederik IX of Denmark, himself an avid oarsman as a young prince. Among the oarsmen you see the English sculling champion Tony Fox (above), who had taken a silver medal in the single at the European Championships in 1951, a fourth place in the Olympic final in 1952, but on Bagsværd he never made it to the final. The gentleman in spectacles handing out the medals is the FISA president Gaston Müllegg. When the Danish coxless four won, King Frederik went down to the landing stage to congratulate his countrymen.

EUROPEAN ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS 1953

This second film about the Championships is showing footage not used:

EUROPEAN ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS 1953

Here is a list of the countries taking the medals at the 1953 European Rowing Championships:

4+ 1) Czechoslovakia 2) Soviet Union 3) Switzerland
2- 1) Soviet Union 2) Belgium 3) Denmark
1x 1) Yugoslavia 2) Poland 3) France
2+ 1) France 2) Germany 3) Belgium
4- 1) Denmark 2) Norway 3) Great Britain
2x 1) Switzerland 2) Soviet Union 3) Yugoslavia
8+ 1) Soviet Union 2) Denmark 3) France

There was an interesting event happening during these 1953 Championships. Before the men’s eliminating heats a women’s international regatta was held with female rowers from nine countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland. The following year, the first European Championships were held for women on the Bosbaan course in Amsterdam, on 20-22 August, 1954, while the men’s races where held on the same course on 27-29 August.

Chris Dodd On Tony Fox

Anyone interested in British rowing during the 1950s, and especially Tony Fox of London RC, should read Chris Dodd's eminent obituary on Fox which was published in The Guardian on 4 October. To read the whole article, please click here.

Tony Fox: An Extraodinary British Sculler

Two months ago, 31 July, Thomas Anthony Fox died, at 82 years old. In the beginning of the 1950s and onward, in a time when British rowing was struggling, Fox rose to the occasion to defend his country’s colours in the single scull and the double scull.

Tony Fox, born on 27 July 1928 on Guernsey, began to row as a young boy, and while he followed in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, he greatly disappointed him by concentrating more on his rowing than his medicine studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Sculling for his college in the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley in 1951, Fox defeated Aage Ernst Larsen of Denmark in the final. Three years earlier, Larsen, together with Ebbe Parsner, had taken the Olympic silver medal in the double scull behind Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell. 1951 became a great year for the young Pembroke student as he also won the Wingfield Sculls and the London Cup at the Metropolitan Regatta – to take the British triple crown was, and still is, a remarkable achievement. Added to this is also a silver medal in the single at the 1951 European Championships in Macon, France. At a time when there was no World Rowing Championships, the world’s best oarsmen were battling for the medals at the European Championships instead.

Strangely enough, Fox was never picked to row in the Cambridge Blue Boat.

Tony Fox joined the London RC which, among its members during the 1950s, had Great Britain’s best oarsmen: ‘Farn’ Carpmael (Wingfields 1948, 1949), John Marsden (Wingfields 1956), John Pinches (Grand 1938; Silver Goblet 1947 with), Edward Sturges (Silver Goblet 1947; Wingfields 1950), and Doug Melvin (Wingfields 1955, 1958).

In the colours of London RC, Tony Fox made it to the final in the Diamonds in 1952, but was beaten by the Australian policeman Mervyn Wood, the 1948 Olympic gold medalist. Fox was thereafter sent to the Olympic rowing event in Helsinki where he came fourth (defeating Wood in a heat to the final). Many years later, Fox would remember his Olympic adventure in Finland. “I was completely out of my depth,” he would say. He was the only sculler without a coach that could give him assistance and advice. Even to this day his accomplishment has yet to be achieved by a British sculler. (For example, Sir Steve Redgrave’s best result in the single scull at the World Championships was a 12th place, and Alan Campbell’s best result in the 2008 Olympic Games was a fifth place.)

Fox did also take the Wingfields in 1952, as in 1953. The latter year, he also overpowered R. George of Belgium to take his second title in the Diamonds.

The following year, Tony Fox and his fellow Londoner, John Marsden, had a go in the double scull at Henley. To everyone’s surprise, they creamed the Russian double, Georgiy Zhylin and Ihor Yemchuk, who had taken the Olympic silver in Helsinki. Nevertheless, Fox and Marsden lost the next heat to previous year’s winner in the double and European champions, the Swiss, E. Schiever and P. Stebler, who would eventually be the winners of the 1954 Double Sculls Challenge Cup. Later that year, the British double again met the Swiss double in the European Championships on Bosbaan, Amsterdam. In the final, Schiever and Stebler looked like easy winners, but they were passed just in front of the finish line by the young Germans, Schneider and Haege. Fox and Marsden ended up on a fourth place.*

One more time, Fox would have a go at the Diamonds. In 1956, he worked his way through the heats, but in the final there was not much he could do against the Pole Tedor Kocerka, who took his second Diamonds title. The same year, Fox finished ninth in the Olympic single event on Lake Wendouree, Ballarat in Australia.

In 2002, Tony Fox was elected an Honorary Member of the London RC.

Below is a newsreel showing Fox winning the Diamonds in 1951 (the newsreel starts with golf, but after 2 minutes it goes over to Henley Royal Regatta.)

SPORTS NEWS

* Some websites and obituaries state that Fox and Marsden took the European Championships/ World Championships/ in the double in Amsterdam in 1954, but that was not the case!