Thames Rowing Club

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Thames Rowing Club is a rowing club situated on the River Thames in Putney, London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1860.

The blade colours of Thames Rowing Club
The blade colours of Thames Rowing Club

Contents

[edit] Club colours

Red, white and black in stripes, the white stripe lying between the red and black and being of half their width.

Thames Rowing Club Boathouse at Putney
Thames Rowing Club Boathouse at Putney

[edit] Clubhouse

The TRC clubhouse is situated on Putney Embankment between Rotherwood Road and Festing Road, approximately 400 metres from the Putney end of the Champonship Course. Its neighbouring clubs are Vesta Rowing Club and Imperial College Boat Club. As such, the club's training water is the tidal stretch of the Thames (known as the tideway); the club commonly trains upstream as far as Richmond Lock and less commonly downstream as far as Westminster Bridge.

The clubhouse itself was constructed in 1879 with several later additions. In 2005, the club opened a new building behind the clubhouse, named in memory of former Club President and benefactor Alan Burrough CBE, providing additional training facilities and boat storage.

[edit] Current activities

Thames would seem to have one of the largest active memberships of any UK rowing club; this membership being split approximately equally between men and women. Since first admitting women in 1973, the club has gained a strong reputation in women's rowing, and s recognised by the UK Amateur Rowing Association as a High Performance Centre for women, with a programme to help top club oarswomen reach the British national squad. However Thames men have also won the Wyfold Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta twice in recent years (in 2003 and 2006).

The club focus is stated to be strongly on racing but it is nevertheless open to complete beginners.

Thames has a junior squad and additionally provides facilities to Putney High School Boat Club. There is additionally a sizeable group of veteran men and women.

Thames currently employs a Head Coach, Lubomir Kisiov, formerly Head Coach of Ottawa Rowing Club, Canada.

As at July 2006, Thames had won events at Henley Royal Regatta 73 times. The most recent wins were the Wyfold Challenge Cup for men's coxless fours in 2006 and the Remenham Challenge Cup for women's eights in 2005.

Thames was one of the founder clubs of the Metropolitan Rowing Association which later became the Amateur Rowing Association (ARA). It is one of only five clubs which retain the right to appoint representatives to the Council of the ARA. The others are Leander Club, London Rowing Club, Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club.

Thames is one of the Founding Clubs of Remenham Club.

The Thames Rowing Club crest
The Thames Rowing Club crest

[edit] History

Thames Rowing Club was founded under the name City of London Rowing Club. The earliest surviving minutes of a club meeting are dated January 1861 but are headed 'City of London Rowing Club. Founded 1860', and 1860 is commonly accepted as the year of foundation.

The initial members were a small group of men, chiefly clerks and salesmen working in London's textiles trade around Fore Street and St Paul's Churchyard. At least one of the early meetings is known to have taken place in the Lord Raglan public House in St Martin's-le-Grand. The club had boats at Simmons Boathouse (the building currently occupied by Chas Newens Marine) and a room at the Red Lion Hotel at the foot of Putney High Street. The club's initial aim was the modest one of ‘organised pleasure or exercise rowing’. There were very few members at first, but the numbers rapidly increased, and in 1862, when club races were first started, the club numbered nearly 150.

In 1862, the club gained the permission of Frank Playford, the only traceable member of "The Thames Club" which had rowed on the Tideway in the 1840s, to rename itself as "The Thames Rowing Club".

By 1864 a growing interest in competition led to the club’s first recorded win, in a four-oared race against the Excelsior Boat Club of Greenwich. The club also put on a crew for the Metropolitan Junior Eights, started in 1865, and followed this up the next year by securing the Challenge Cup for Junior Eights at the first Metropolitan Regatta.

In 1870 the Club won at Henley Royal Regatta for the first time, taking the Wyfold Challenge Cup from the Oscillators Club of Surbiton and the Oxford Etonians in a race that, according to the Rowing Almanack, was ‘a pretty hollow affair, the Thames crew winning as they pleased from first to last.’ Over the next twenty years, Thames’ had its first great flowering, with 22 wins at Henley by 1890, including four victories in the most prestigious event, the Grand Challenge Cup for eights.

In 1877 the Thames Boathouse Company (Limited) was formed for the purpose of providing a boat and club house for the club. Money was raised by means of shares, the club and the company being kept quite distinct. The construction of the present Thames Boat-house on a site about 300 yards above that of the London followed and the building was completed in 1879 at a cost of over £3000. Thames was soon established as a mainstay of amateur rowing in London.

This early period was the time of the great Victorian amateur. Many Thames members were keen on all sports and the club itself also had an influence beyond rowing:

From 1866, Thames organised cross-country races around Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park as part of the oarsmen’s winter training. These are generally accepted as the first open cross-country events to have taken place in Britain. One eventual result was the foundation of the Thames Hare and Hounds, the first cross-country club, which would itself go on to an illustrious history and an important role in the birth of the Amateur Athletics Association.

Another addition to rowing training was boxing, with a ring frequently set up in the hall at the clubhouse. George Vize, a member of five winning crews at Henley, became amateur heavyweight champion of Britain in 1878 and a founder member of the Amateur Boxing Association. Boxing finally disappeared after the First World War, when the coach Steve Fairbairn ended it because of the damage caused to oarsmen’s hands.

From the late 1890s into the first decade of the 20th century, Thames suffered a decline but recovered as the decade wore on, notably through the efforts of Julius Beresford and Karl Vernon.

After the first world war, Thames came under the influence of the coach Steve Fairbairn. Fairbairn was an Australian graduate of Cambridge, with boundless charisma and innovative (and highly controversial) views on training and technique. He was one of the major influences on the club and on the sport in general, becoming generally accepted as the father of modern rowing. Under his tutelage in the 1920s, and that of Julius Beresford, Thames reached new heights, winning four events at Henley in both 1927 and 1928, something which no one club has replicated in the 20th century.

At the same time, Thames was home to Britain’s greatest ever single sculler. Jack Beresford took Silver at the 1920 Amsterdam Olympics in an epic race with Jack Kelly, before going one better with Gold at Paris in 1924. He won the Diamond Sculls at Henley four times and the Wingfield Sculls for the Amateur championship of Great Britain a record seven times. Then, with Thames crews, he took three further Olympic medals: Silver in the eight in Antwerp, 1928, Gold in the coxless four in Los Angeles, 1932 and Gold in the double scull in Berlin, 1936. It would be 60 years before Steve Redgrave bettered his record.

Fairbairn left the club for London Rowing Club in 1925. The precise reasons are unclear but undoubtedly a clash with Julius Beresford was partly at the root: the two coaches, despite holding similar views on technique, were unable to get on.

In 1972, Thames became one of the first British rowing clubs to admit women and rapidly became the powerhouse of women's rowing, a position it retains to this day. Thames women have represented Great Britain at every Olympic Games since Los Angeles; most recently Elise Laverick won Bronze in the double scull at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and sisters Guin Batten and Miriam Batten won Silver in the quadruple scull at the Sydney Olympics. Since the founding of Henley Women's Regatta in 1987, the Club has won there 44 times.

[edit] Winning crews at Henley Royal Regatta

The following Thames crews (including composites) were winners at Henley Royal Regatta:


Year Event
1870 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1871 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1872 Thames Challenge Cup
1872 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1873 Thames Challenge Cup
1874 Thames Challenge Cup
1875 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1876 Grand Challenge Cup
1877 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1878 Grand Challenge Cup
1880 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1880 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1881 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1883 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1884 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1886 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1886 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1888 Grand Challenge Cup
1888 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1889 Grand Challenge Cup
1889 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1890 Thames Challenge Cup
1891 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1893 Thames Challenge Cup
1894 Stewards' Challenge Cup
Year Event
1894 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1898 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1899 Diamond Challenge Sculls
1905 Thames Challenge Cup
1908 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1909 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1911 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1911 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1912 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1919 Fawley Cup
1920 Diamond Challenge Sculls
1920 Thames Challenge Cup
1920 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1922 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1923 Grand Challenge Cup
1924 Diamond Challenge Sculls
1925 Diamond Challenge Sculls
1925 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1926 Diamond Challenge Sculls
1926 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1927 Grand Challenge Cup
1927 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1927 Thames Challenge Cup
1927 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1928 Grand Challenge Cup
Year Event
1928 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1928 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1928 Thames Challenge Cup
1929 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1929 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1931 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1932 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1934 Thames Challenge Cup
1939 Centenary Double Sculls
1947 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1948 Grand Challenge Cup
1948 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1949 Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1951 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1952 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1955 Wyfold Challenge Cup
1956 Stewards' Challenge Cup
1999 Women's Invitation Eights
2002 Women's Quadruple Sculls
2003 Wyfold Challenge Cup
2004 Remenham Challenge Cup
2005 Remenham Challenge Cup
2006 Wyfold Challenge Cup

[edit] Winning crews at Henley Women's Regatta

The following Thames crews (including composites, marked with an asterisk) were winners at Henley Women's Regatta:


Year Event
1988 Open Eight (rowing as GB squad) *
1988 Open Coxless Pair (rowing as GB squad)
1989 Club Eight
1990 Open Eight *
1990 Open Coxless Four *
1990 Lightweight Coxless Four *
1990 Lightweight Double Scull *
1990 Club Eight
1991 Invitation Coxless Four (rowing as GB squad) *
1991 Open Coxless Pair (rowing as GB squad) *
1992 Club Eight
1993 Open Coxless Four *
1993 Open Coxless Pair *
1994 Open Coxless Four *
1994 Club Eight
Year Event
1995 Open Eight (rowing as Nautilus) *
1995 Open Coxed Four
1995 Lightweight Coxless Pair *
1995 Club Eight
1996 Open Coxless Four
1996 Lightweight Quadruple Scull *
1997 Open Eight *
1997 Open Coxless Four
1997 Lightweight Quadruple Scull
1997 Lightweight Coxless Pair
1997 Club Eight
1998 Open Coxed Four
1998 Open Quadruple Scull
1999 Club Eight
2000 Open Coxless Pair *
Year Event
2001 Open Coxed Four
2001 Open Double Scull *
2001 Open Single Scull
2001 Lightweight Double Scull
2002 Open Eight *
2002 Open Single Scull
2002 Lightweight Double Scull
2002 Club Eight
2003 Open Double Scull
2004 Open Eight
2005 Lightweight Quadruple Scull
2005 Intermediate Eight
2006 Elite Single Scull
2006 Elite Lightweight Quadruple Scull
2007 Intermediate Eight

[edit] Olympians

The following Thames members have represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games:

Paris 1900

Name Event Result
Saint George Ashe Single Scull Bronze

Stockhom 1912

Name Event Result
Julius Beresford Coxed Four Silver
Geoffrey Carr Coxed Four Silver
Bruce Logan Coxed Four Silver
Charles Rought Coxed Four Silver
Karl Vernon Coxed Four Silver

Antwerp 1920

Name Event Result
Jack Beresford Single Scull Silver

Paris 1924

Name Event Result
Reginald Bare Eight
Jack Beresford Single Scull Gold
C.G. Chandler Eight
H.C. Debenham Eight
Hugh Dulley Eight
Ian Fairbairn Eight
Jack Godwin Eight
G.C. (Bill) Killick Coxless Pair Bronze
A.F. Long Eight
H. Morphy Eight
Charles Rew Eight
Cyril Southgate Coxless Pair Bronze

Amsterdam 1928

Name Event Result
J.C.(Felix) Badcock Eight Silver
Jack Beresford Eight Silver
Jamie Hamilton Eight Silver
G.C. (Bill) Killick Eight Silver
Donald Gollan Eight Silver
H.M. Lane Eight Silver
Gully Nickalls Eight Silver
Arthur Sulley Eight Silver
H.E. West Eight Silver

Los Angeles 1932

Name Event Result
J.C.(Felix) Badcock Coxless Four Gold
Jack Beresford Coxless Four Gold
Hugh Edwards Coxless Four Gold
Rowland George Coxless Four Gold
L.F. (Dick) Southwood Single Scull

Berlin 1936

Name Event Result
Jack Beresford Double Scull Gold
L.F. (Dick) Southwood Double Scull Gold

London 1948

Name Event Result
Tony Butcher Coxless Four
Tom Christie Coxless Four
Jack Dearlove Eight Silver
Bakie James Coxed Pair
Peter Kirkpatrick Coxless Four
Hank Rushmere Coxless Four
Mark Scott Coxed Pair

Helsinki 1952

Name Event Result
Peter de Giles Coxed Four
Graham Fisk Coxed Four
Lawrence Guest Coxed Four
R.A.F. (John) Macmillan Coxed Four
Paul Massey Coxed Four

Melbourne 1956

Name Event Result
Alan Watson Eight

Tokyo 1964

Name Event Result
John James Coxless Four

Moscow 1980

Name Event Result
Malcolm McGowan Eight Silver
John Pritchard Eight Silver

Los Angeles 1984

Name Event Result
Sarah Hunter Jones Women’s Eight
Malcolm McGowan Eight
Tessa Millar Women’s Coxed Four
John Pritchard Eight

Seoul 1988

Name Event Result
Sally Andreae Women’s Double Scull

Barcelona 1992

Name Event Result
Miriam Batten Women’s Double Scull
Dot Blackie Women’s Eight
Katie Brownlow Women’s Eight
Phillippa Cross Women’s Eight

Atlanta 1996

Name Event Result
Guin Batten Women's Single Scull
Miriam Batten Women's Eight
Dot Blackie Women's Eight
Phillippa Cross Women's Pair
Susie Ellis Women's Eight
Kate Mackenzie Women's Coxless Pair
Kate Pollitt Women's Eight
Annamarie Stapleton Women's Eight

Sydney 2000

Name Event Result
Guin Batten Women's Quadruple Scull Silver
Miriam Batten Women's Quadruple Scull Silver
Dot Blackie Women's Coxless Pair
Elise Laverick Women's Eight
Kate Mackenzie Women's Eight
Alison Mowbray Women's Single Scull

Athens 2004

Name Event Result
Elise Laverick Women’s Double Scull Bronze

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames, 1881

[edit] External links