HoRR in 2014 and in 1928

HoRR - a well-organised chaos! Photo: British Rowing. 

UPDATE: The HoRR was abandoned this afternoon after about 75 crews had passed the finish line.
 
Today, at 14:15 (2:15 p.m.), it is time for the Head of the River Race (HoRR), when slightly more than 400 eights race the 4 1/2-mile course between Mortlake and Putney (the Boat Race course in reverse). The race was founded by the famous coach Steve Fairbairn in 1926. For more information and to see the start order click here. Follow the race on Twitter - @EightsHead

The other day, Peter Simpson of Vesta RC was looking through some old papers at Vesta and found some instructions for HoRR umpires from 1928. Peter sent it to HTBS, so we could share it with our many readers:

Head of the River Race, 24th March, 1928

Duties etc. of Umpires

.......... at ..........

You have been appointed umpire at the above point for the Head of the River Race on Saturday, 24 March, 1928. It is suggested that Umpires should be in pair-oared or four-oared tub boats. They should be on their alleted stations at 3.0 p.m. All crews will have numbers in the bows of the boat, and the cox's back. When the race has started, umpires should if necessary warn coxswains who are obstruting the passage of an overtaking crew.
Boats being overtaken must be got out of the course of boats overtaking, so that the latter have a clear way through. Umpires must see that this is done. Any delay in obeying may lead to disqualification if the overtaking boat is forced out of its course, whether or not a clash takes place.
Umpires are also requested to warn river traffic that the race is coming down, and so help clear the course. Your presence is requested at Westminster Bank Rowing Club, Putney at 6.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 20 March, when a meeting of officials will take place. Every umpire's boat must carry a flag. This is at the request of the Port of London Authority.

Great stuff, Peter ~ thank you for sharing!

And then we have some moving pictures that Tim Koch found on British Pathe, from the 1931 race and the 1932 race - enjoy!

"WHAT A LOT OF EIGHTS!" aka WHAT ALOT OF EIGHTS

127 "EIGHTS"

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.

The Legendary Casey Brothers

Greg Denieffe writes,

According to W. B. Yeats, Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone* but I’m not so sure after reading reports of a new book called The Legendary Casey Brothers.

In an updated edition of a book originally published in the USA about the Casey family from Sneem, County Kerry, author Jim Hudson tells the story of seven brothers who rowed successfully at home on the Lakes of Killarney, and in both London and Boston as well as becoming folk heroes in the world of professional wrestling.

The publisher Collins Press has this to say about the book:

In 1982 the seven Casey brothers were inducted into the Irish Sports Hall of Fame, the only family ever to receive that honour. The brothers, from Sneem in County Kerry, starred as Olympic-class oarsmen, Tug-of-War champions, professional wrestlers and boxers and won fame throughout the sporting world. Steve, known as ‘Crusher’ Casey, became the supreme wrestler in the world and for a decade no one could match him. When he turned to boxing, the great Joe Louis refused to go into the ring with him. In 1983 at a family reunion in Sneem, five brothers, all in their seventies, climbed into the four-oar boat they used to win championships in the 1930s. Although they had not rowed together in fifty years, they still moved with their former natural unity. Sports people from Kerry have achieved fame in many fields but the success of the Caseys surely outshines all.

The list of Casey sporting achievements is many and varied:

·    Paddy Casey was successful in the Salter Cup races at Killarney Regatta and was undefeated light and heavyweight wrestling champion of Ireland and also won many long-distance cycling races in Ireland
·    Dan Casey was a contractor, coxswain of the Salter Cup crews, champion oarsman, and a tug-of-war champion
·    Jack Casey remained in Ireland, married and took up farming and fishing. A superb oarsman in his own right, he helped the Caseys win the Salter Cup at the Killarney Regatta
·    Tom Casey was also in the Salter Cup winning crews and became British amateur wrestling champion in 1937 after only nine days’ training before moving to Boston and joining Riverside Boat Club. In 1940, he won the Casey Codman Challenge on the Charles River
·    Jim Casey was also successful in the Salter Cup races, went to Boston and joined his brothers in Riverside Boat Club and won the Canadian and South American wrestling titles
·    Mick Casey in a career that lasted over twenty years, had 200 wrestling bouts
·    And, of course, probably the greatest of them all, Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey became the supreme wrestler in the world and he retired undefeated as world wrestling champion. But before that he led the Sneem crew to their three successive Salter Cup victories, thereby winning the cup outright; he rowed successfully in London.

The Caseys, from left: Tom, Paddy, Jim, Steve. Front: Dan (Cox)

The Irish Times recently reviewed the book in an article called "The Dream Team from Sneem". In the book you can read about their early life in Kerry rowing traditional boats and winning the coveted Salters Cup at Killarney Regatta three times in 1930, 1931 and 1933 (no regatta in 1932); their move to London and their successes there with Ace Rowing Club and their bid to row at the 1936 Olympic Games (* see opening paragraph above!) which was foiled owing to their earnings from professional wrestling.

Tom, Jim and Steve Casey (l. to r.) on the Charles River, Boston, Massachusetts.
Tom, Jim and Steve moved to Boston and rowed for Riverside Boat Club. From A Brief History of Riverside Boat Club:

Among the club’s more colorful oarsmen was Steve “Crusher” Casey. An immigrant from Skibbereen, County Kerry, a professional wrestler and boxer, and a Boston icon, Steve and two of his seven brothers raced victoriously for Riverside throughout the 1930’s and 40’s [sic]. In testimony to his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, his statue stands today in his hometown, while in this country his bars, Casey’s on Huntington Avenue near Boston Symphony Hall and Casey’s Too in Hull, were favorite watering holes for locals, Irish immigrants and rowers alike.

The Irish Times article comments on their time in Boston:

Four years afterward (1940), three of the brothers went some way to proving their point, when they challenged all-comers to a single skulls (sic) race on Boston’s Charles River. Only one of America’s best rowers, Russell Codman, was brave enough to accept. Watched by a quarter-million spectators, he was beaten into fourth place.

The Dorchester Reporter has more details on the challenge issued by the Casey brothers and the race with Codman.

The original book by Jim Hudson was published privately in the USA in 1990 and was called The Legend of the Caseys (The Toughest Family on Earth!).

For the new edition of the book, Radio Kerry presenter and former GAA referee Weeshie Fogarty and Kerry-based videographer Christy Riordan travelled to Texas to meet with Myrtle Casey, Jim Casey’s wife.

Here is Killarney Advertiser journalist Éamonn Fitzgerald’s preview of The Legendary Casey Brothers, to be launched in Sneem by Olympic Gold medallist Ronnie Delany on 18 October:

“They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me”; these were the immortal lines from Maurya, (the spelling used by Synge) the mother in Synge’s Riders to the Sea, as she was ‘caoining’ the death of her sons. This quotation surfaced when I read a new book from The Collins Press, The Legendary Casey Brothers. Written some years ago about the legendary seven Casey brothers from Sneem, it will be launched in The Sneem Hotel by Olympic gold medallist Ronnie Delany on October 18.

Written by Jim Hudson some years ago it is based on interviews with Jim Casey and his wife Myrtle in Texas telling the story of the seven legendary world champion brothers from Sneem. The author is now deceased [sic ~ see Comment No. 1 below!] and so is Jim Casey, but his wife, 92 year old Myrtle is coming out of a nursing home and travelling to Sneem for the launch. When Myrtle was on holidays in Sneem some years ago she was put in touch with Radio Kerry’s Weeshie Fogarty and Christy Riordan. She wanted the Casey brothers’ story to be published so she invited Weeshie and Christy to her home in Texas in 2008 and gave them access to all the memorabilia and documents, including the unpublished book. This duo proved the catalyst for the publication and Collins Press took up the challenge. Christy Riordan has also produced an excellent DVD on The Casey brothers of Sneem.

You can look inside the book here and check out the DVD and watch a seven minute trailer here.

The Casey family sporting prowess continues through the generations: 

Paddy’s son, Patrick Casey, was a member of the Vesta Rowing Club in London and was a member of their Britannia Challenge Cup winning crew at the 1981 Henley Royal Regatta;

Jack’s son, Noel, was a successful rower and coach with Vesta Rowing Club, but is best remembered for his time with Thames Rowing Club; particularly coaching amongst others, his daughters Bernadette and Caroline to many national successes and to seventh place for Great Britain at the World Rowing Championships held in Munich in 1981. He also coached the Great Britain women’s eight to a fifth place finish at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. 

Bernadette Casey Carroll now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and her children Jack and Victoria are according to The Kerryman deeply involved in sports including rowing and have competed in England at a very high level.

‘Romantification’ aside, I’m looking forward to reading the book and learning more about this extraordinary family.

 The DVD The Casey Brothers.

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.

(To Say Nothing Of The Dog)

Is it 'J', Harris, George, and Montmorency sculling during the River Pageant?

One of the great things with running HTBS is the contact with you readers. It might be a comment for one of the blog posts, or just a short e-mail with a question or even a pat on the shoulder. Yesterday, Fraser from England sent an e-mail saying that in a nice photograph by Tim K., in his coverage of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant (posted on 4 June), Fraser found his own skiff. While the good Tim sent Fraser a photograph of his boat, Tim noticed another skiff on the port side of Fraser’s with a cute dog (see above).

I do not know if the terrier’s name is Montmorency, but at least Fraser informed me that the crew in the skiff is from Vesta Rowing Club and that ‘the terrier has his own bowl in the club bar’. See, I have always thought that the English were such dog lovers!

Vesta RC At War 1914-1918

After I had posted “Downton Abbey & Vesta RC” on Sunday, 15 January, I received a couple of e-mails from Vincent McGovern, member of Vesta RC Committee, where he very kindly offered to help fill in some blanks in my 15 January entry about his club. For example, I did not know how many of Vesta’s member had died during the First World War, only that many did not come back, according to H.B. Wells in his Vesta Rowing Club: A Centenary History (1969).

Of course, all the rowing clubs in Great Britain had the same problem at that time, the clubs were drained when the young members went to war, a war that many of them thought was going to be short-lived, which would not be the case. From a Vesta Committee meeting on 15 September, 1914, the minutes read that the club regatta has been abandoned due to ‘the very large number of members serving with the colours...’. In L.G. Applebee’s The Vesta Rowing Club 1870-1920 (1920), which Vincent sent a digitized copy of, the author writes that many older members helped the club to survive when it went ‘on the rocks’. Applebee particularly mentions Dan Fitte, who gave 100 guineas to the club during this time which ‘kept the club clear of debt, whilst the young of the club were doing their bit’ (in the trenches). Fitte, who at the age of 40 sculled at the 1919 Peace Regatta at Henley, even beat ‘Gully’ Nickalls who was half his age in a heat, became a great access to Vesta RC in the future, serving as the club’s president between 1920 and 1951 (seen up on the right).

Of the close to one hundred of Vesta’s members who went to war, twelve never came back. They were: Capt. J.M. Bales; 2nd Lieut. R.H. Ballard; Lieut. T.A.W. Crozier, M.C.; C.S.M. T.H. Evans; Capt. R.C. Hall; 2nd Lieut. P.W. Hubbard; Rim. S. Johnson; Rim. E.G. Lewis; Stg. A Reid; 2nd Lieut. C. Vincent; 2nd Lieut. F.C. Walker; and 2nd Lieut. R.B. Wilson-Rae. Their names are now on a wooden memorial, which replaced a larger one that was destroyed in a fire in 1936. See below:

In his e-mail, Vincent points out an interesting thing about one of the names on the War Memorial, 2nd Lieut. C. Vincent. But let us look back to the year 1908 when a young Vesta member, Karl Schwerzl, had won the ‘Junior Sculls’ at Kingston, and the pairs with Dan Fitte at the Metropolitan Regatta. Four years later, in 1912, Karl went on to win the ‘Junior-Senior Sculls’ at three regattas, the Metropolitan, Reading, and Marlow – a promising oarsman, indeed. Then, at a committee meeting, on 6 October, 1914, the minutes for the meeting state that Mr. Schwerzl has changed his surname to “Vincent”. The man with the German-sounding name ‘Karl Schwerzl’ is suddenly ‘Charles Vincent’. He joined the The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) and died on 17 October, 1918. He now rests at Brancourt-Le-Grand Military Cemetery in France.

It was not uncommon that English families with Germanic surnames changed their names to more Anglicised names during The Great War, Vincent mentions in his e-mail. The most famous example is, of course, the British Royal family, who changed their House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor, which King George V did in 1917.

Vincent also brings up minutes from a Committee meeting held on 1 December, 1914, where the Hon. Sec. refers to ‘reply paid post cards’ (below). No one knows for sure, but ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost of the Christmas Cards was included’, Vincent writes; that would then be one of the one’s that was featured in the “Downton Abbey & Vesta RC” entry on HTBS a week ago.

At the ‘restart’ of Vesta RC after the Great War had ended, the last point in the minutes from the 14 February, 1920, is the decision to create a War Memorial honouring the members who gave their lives serving their King and their country.

War Memorial for those Vesta members who died during the Second World War.

My warm thanks to Vincent McGovern for all help with information, photographs and copies of Vesta RC Committee Meeting minutes.

Downton Abbey & Vesta RC

Tonight, the PBS TV channel here in the USA is going to show the second episode in the second series of Julian Fellowes’s Edwardian drama, Downton Abbey. According to an article in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph 4.2 million people turned on the television last Sunday to watch the previous episode created by the British ITV. I have to confess that I was one of these viewers (sitting next to Mrs. B.), and I enjoyed myself immensely to once again see the characters from last year’s first series. (On this side of the pond, we are some months behind, as the last episode in the second season was shown in Britain at Christmas that just passed.)

Yes, I am aware that I am watching a ‘soap opera’, but it is well-played, although – and here Baron Fellowes of West Stafford has to excuse me – I think that the script has its weak spots. But never mind, what is mostly shown here in the USA is so dreadfully bad, both when it comes to the script and acting, that Baron Fellowes’s ‘opera’ is a pure delight to watch. Thank god for public TV in America! This second series of the show is time-wise covering the First World War, and now I am finally getting to why I am actually mentioning Downton Abbey on HTBS.

The other day, the latest item I won on eBay.com arrived in my mail box: a Christmas card from 1914. In this case, it is the sender that is the interesting part, Vesta Rowing Club at Putney. The members of the club send their fellow club members ‘who are serving their King and Country’ … their Heartiest Good Wishes this Christmastide.’

I am not certain how many of Vesta RC’s members died during the Great War, but I surely agree with H.B. Wells in his Vesta Rowing Club: A Centenary History (1969), when he writes, ‘too many of our young oarsmen did not return’.

It seems a fire in 1936 destroyed parts of the club’s archives. However, members still, when Wells’s book was published, remembered the ‘gratitude’ shown towards the club in 1920 by the staff and patients of St Dunstan’s, whose mission was and still is ‘to help blind ex-Service men and women to lead independent and fulfilling lives.’ St Dunstan’s was founded by Arthur Pearson, owner and founder of the Daily Express who himself went blind in 1913. During the War, Vesta RC’s R.J. Calcutt (club president 1905-1919) had taken the initiative to offer ‘war-blinded men’ at St Dunstan’s, rowing at Vesta. The ex-Service men were taught rowing by the club’s members. The hospitalised man is then another tie-in to Downton Abbey’s second series.

Please, see also "Vesta RC At War 1914-1918", on Monday, 23 January, 2012.

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 3

Westminster School Boat Club. Seen in this photograph is OUBC coach Sean Bowden.

Here continues Tim Koch’s third and final part of his story about The Putney Embankment – London’s Boathouse Row.

Vesta RC had been formed in 1871 and was initially based at the Feathers Boathouse on the River Wandle in south London. By 1875 it had moved to the Unity Boat House on the Putney Embankment (run by the famous rowing and boatbuilding Phelps family for many years). The Unity is now Ranelagh Sailing Club, situated between Westminster School BC and the building that Vesta erected as its boathouse in 1890 and which still serves it today.

Westminster School BC

The only Victorian boathouse not yet mentioned that still stands on the Embankment started life slightly differently. What is now Westminster School Boat Club was erected by the boat builder, J.H. Clasper, I think in the 1880s. John Hawks Clasper (1835-1908) was the son of the famous and innovative Newcastle boat builder, oarsman and coach, Harry Clasper (1812-1870). John moved south in the late 1860s and by the 1870s was building boats in Wandsworth (just upriver from Putney) and in Oxford. Many of the boats used in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race in this period were made by him. The first reference that I have of him as ‘Clasper of Putney’ is 1882 when he ‘steered’ Payne in the Wingfield Sculls from a following boat. Between 1887 and 1897, ‘Clasper of Putney’ again built many of the craft used in the University Boat Race. The original building has been thoughtfully and ‘lightly’ adapted for modern use by WSBC and the name ‘JH Clasper’ is still nicely picked out in red brick on the gable end (see above and on top).

Imperial College BC

The next surviving boathouse at Putney dates from much later. It is the very pleasing building put up for Imperial College (London) BC in 1937. The PECA Report again:

‘Its sleek moderne lines make for an attractive contrast to the dominant Victoriana, varying the styles of the group of boathouses but keeping to their overall character. It is a highly individual and positive building, featuring a wave motif on the rendered panel beneath its cluster of Crittall windows. It is also one of the only quintessentially 1930s buildings in this part of Putney. A contemporary extension to the boat house […] was added in 1997.’

The modern extension is not unattractive and it allows the original and better part of the boathouse to dominate. Sadly, a small terrace of Victorian houses had to be demolished to make way for it.

The remaining architectural ‘style’ on the Embankment is, unfortunately, that of the post 1939-1945 War period. The PECA is generous:

‘[…] relatively recent additions reflect the architecture style of the 50s and 60s and should be regarded as positive in terms of their function and group value even though their overall design lacks the finesse of their neighbours.’

While accepting that a rowing club must be a functional place and not (in the words of the late Peter Coni) ‘a sporting slum’, I find it hard to be positive about the architecture of Kings College School (built for Barclays Bank RC), HSBC (since 1992 the name for the Midland Bank, the full name of the ‘Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’ is never used) and Dulwich College (built for the NatWest Bank RC). The only building with some character in this group is that of Crabtree BC (built for Lensbury RC, a club for Shell Oil and British Petroleum employees). I find it difficult to date but its nice external spiral staircase suggests that it may be older than its three neighbours to the west.

The architecturally not so attractive Kings College Boathouse.

In its conclusions, the Putney Embankment Conservation Area Report says:

‘Many of the boathouses on the Embankment are fine or indeed excellent buildings, but it is their use that gives them their group character.’

That ‘use’ is rowing. Long may it continue!

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 1.
The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 2.

Blackie's Rowing Partner Harry Tate

When I wrote about Harry Blackstaffe’s charming little drawing of a sculler after his name on the dinner list of the winners of the Wingfield Sculls in 1930, I could not remember where I had seen it previously. But the other day, when I was going through some old rowing post cards, I came across Blackstaffe’s signature again. Blackstaffe, or ‘Blackie’ as he was called, rowed and sculled for Vesta RC, and in the photograph above, we can see him together with Harry Tate in a pair. Looking in H. B. Wells’s Vesta Rowing Club: A Centenary History (1969), I can only find Blackie’s partner mentioned twice, in the Foreword, written by Thames RC’s Freddy Page, and by Wells, who writes, “The No. 2 in the crew was R. M. Hutchison, later a famous figure on the music hall stage under the name ‘Harry Tate’.” [p.5] But maybe that is not Blackie’s partner in the boat, although the name is the same. Anyone who knows?