THAMES ROWING CLUB

'Thames Rowing Club' is situated on the River Thames in Putney, London, United Kingdom and was founded in 1860. The club's colours are red, white and black in stripes, the white stripe lying between the red and black and being of half their width.

Contents

Current position

History

Winning crews at Henley Royal Regatta

Olympians

See also

External links

Current position

Of the three grand British rowing clubs (along with Leander Club and London Rowing Club), Thames has the largest active rowing membership and is the only one to welcome complete beginners. It has over 800 members, of which around 200 are in training for competition. Of these, approximately 60% are women, and almost 20% represent veteran oarsmen and women.
Thames is recognised by the UK Amateur Rowing Association as a High Performance Centre for women's rowing, with a programme to help top club rowers reach the British national squad.
Thames has links with several local schools, of which Putney High School is the largest, to encourage junior rowing and attract young people into the sport. The junior programme is becoming increasingly successful, with juniors competing at many levels in the sport.
As at July 2006, Thames had won events at Henley Royal Regatta 73 times including the Wyfold Challenge Cup for men's coxless fours in 2006 and the Remenham Challenge Cup for women's eights in 2005.
The Thames RC clubhouse, situated on Putney Embankment is a treasure house of rowing history. In 2005, the club opened a large new building, named in memory of former Club President and benefactor Alan Burrough CBE, which provides extensive training facilities and boat storage.
Thames is one of the Founding Clubs of Remenham Club.

History

In 1860, the City of London Rowing Club was founded at Putney by a small group of men, chiefly clerks and salesmen in the city rag trade. They based themselves at Simmons Boathouse and a room at the Red Lion Hotel and their initial aim was the modest one of ‘organised pleasure or exercise rowing’. It would be 1864 (by which time the club’s name had been changed to Thames Rowing Club) before a growing interest in competition led to the club’s first recorded win, in a race against the Excelsior Boat Club of Greenwich.
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. With the completion of a spacious clubhouse on Putney Embankment in 1879, Thames was established as a mainstay of amateur rowing.
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 great coach Steve Fairbairn wound it up because of the damage caused to oarsmen’s hands.
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.
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 39 times.

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 and Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1878	Grand Challenge Cup
1880	Silver Goblets and Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1880	Stewards' Challenge Cup
1881	Silver Goblets and 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 and Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1899	Diamond Challenge Sculls
1905	Thames Challenge Cup
1908	Wyfold Challenge Cup
1909	Stewards' Challenge Cup
1911	Silver Goblets and Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1911	Stewards' Challenge Cup
1912	Silver Goblets and 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 and Nickalls' Challenge Cup
1928	Stewards' Challenge Cup
1928	Thames Challenge Cup
1929	Silver Goblets and 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 and 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

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 Andrea	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

See also

★ Leander Club

★ London Rowing Club

★ Imperial College Boat Club

External links

★ Thames Rowing Club official website