1865 – 1879 #

In October 1865 there were eleven new members of whom R. Waltham won his Blue for putting the weight. Another, J.G. Barnes, later Lord Gorell, was President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court. The Club was £100 in debt but a subscription was deferred. It was proposed, but not carried, to row the scratch fours in academicals. In the Lent term of 1866 college trial eights certainly rowed and they were to become regular. (This year Cambridge seriously considered not challenging Oxford; the Cantabs had lost a run of races and were to go on losing until 1870 when Goldie restored honour. Rouse Ball attributed these steady defeats to a defective training theory that sought to minimise the time spent in coming forward by a too-quick body swing.) For the first time the weights of a crew are given, for the May term. The heaviest man was 13st. 9lbs. and the lightest l0st., the average being 11st. 9lbs. without the coxswain. It was proposed this term to send a boat to the Lynn regatta, the first such suggestion in the minutes. The expense would have been about 5/- per member but the proposal was apparently not acted upon. The Captain rightly felt that competition in foreign waters would be good for the morale, but as in other matters a captain’s judgment was not backed up generally. So too in October Emmanual proposed that small clubs amalgamate to send a crew to Henley but the PBC did not participate, if, that is, there was any response at all to the motion; W.E. Heitland accounts for the failure of a similar scheme in ‘After Many Years’ (p.111).

In the Lent term of 1867 there were only sixteen rowing men in the College. This is not to say that Club membership was necessarily low, but not all members, it must be recalled, were oarsmen. Furthermore the old examination schedule was less compact than it now is, so men would often go out of residence to read if they were to be examined in the Lent term. Notwithstanding, a second boat was gamely put together, but it failed to secure a place in the unsuitable getting-on method already described. It was proposed that the crew of the first boat always take breakfast and supper together in the same room and share the expense (the Hall was at that time used only for dinner in the late afternoon, but that meal crept during the century into the evening hours); this proposal was agreed to but not apparently acted on.

The minutes of the October term of 1867 tell us something of the value of prizes. That for the challenge sculls was 16/6, and each man in the winning scratch four received 19/-; entrants paid a small fee towards this. In October 1868 one of the twelve new members, T.C. Fox (Captain 1871-72), later played cricket for Hampshire. Six crews entered the scratch fours, a respectable turn-out.

In 1868 the Cam, which was much silted up, was dredged by the CUBC to a depth of five feet at a cost of £1000 a mile. There was also a proposal made in October 1869 to rectify what Sir Shane Leslie called the hell of rowers and paradise of coxes, i.e. to cut through Grassy and Ditton corners and so straighten the bumping course. This year (1868) the rules were revised - a copy is in the minutes - and there were elaborate dress regulations. The winning trial eight, whose coach’s horse cost £3/10 to hire, rowed the full course in Lent 1869 from Bait’s Bite to the Railway Bridge in 8’51”. In the Lent term of 1870 the Captain again stressed the general importance of maintaining a second crew; his appeal was answered, but the boat which got on made no bump. In the light of the ‘exhorbitance’ of College cooks and butlers it was resolved to side-step heavy training expenses and adopt the Oxford plan whereby members of the Club as a whole would take it in turns to breakfast the crew. Since there were fifty-six members of the PBC the response was good. On March 8 it was proposed to build a shower bath in the club room at Logan’s. By early May the new shower was erected in such a way that ‘should Logan prove further disagreeable it cannot be claimed as a fixture’. But on May 16 Logan’s yard men were each given half-a-crown - the shower had in some way broken and caused much inconvenience. The Captain, Amphlett, with a due sense of the past, proposed that the Club buy up any portions of the ship and oars that had rowed Head twenty-eight years before. These ‘sweet remains’ are now in the Sexcentenary Club room. The Captain also proposed that the second crew be awarded its oars for the previous term’s success; the motion was lost for no other reason than that their oars were new and indispensable, while the old ones at Logan’s were not the ones they had rowed with and so no true memorial. A new flag, made from stuff given by the Club to the Misses Budd of ‘The Limes’, Hitchin, was unfurled. The doubtless gratified ladies were sent a photograph of the crew. That May success was mixed; on the fifth night a strong wind blew the rope, which the cox had flung away at the start, into the rudder where it fouled and held the boat. The term’s final meeting was exercised by the problem of how to keep the Young Christian Men out of our boat room during the Long.

In the October term of 1870 there were ten new members; J.B. Pryor was a Virginian, the son of a Confederate General. It was proposed that canvas pair oar races be instituted but the Captain urged that this would be detrimental to eight oar racing and so the motion was lost. In the Lent term of 1871 Chr. Wordsworth of Trinity, who had been elected to a Peterhouse Fellowship, was made an honorary member of the Club; this he took seriously and contributed to subscriptions. In the May term an appeal was made to old members to help bail the Club out of its financial difficulties.

In the October term of 1871 there were thirty-seven members of the PBC Among the thirteen new members were G. Chrystal, later bracketed second Wrangler and second Smith’s Prizeman, and Professor of mathematics at Edinburgh and St Andrews; A. Lloyd, a student of Japan and translator; and R. Solomon, High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa: there are commemorative brasses to the last two in the South wall of the sanctuary of the Chapel. This term an agreement was signed by Logan: for forty guineas he should supply the Club with a new eight annually, boat housing, dressing room and attendance; a boat would be returned to him every two years; water, repairs and damages were not included. This does not seem dear if compared to earlier costs, but the Club failed to be satisfied. In the Lent term of 1872 only twenty-five members were in residence. The crew was light and the head¬wind high: hence the loss of place. It was proposed that a dinner be held in London to tempt old members back into residence for the May term; but the motion was not acted upon. Men declined rowing for reading. The Captain felt reading to be an individual matter, and cited as example one member who could not read after drinking a quart of beer at supper. Training was to be as follows: breakfast at 8 in the rooms of a crew member, early Hall, and then supper, which would by over by 8.30. Still it proved difficult to get men who had undertaken to row to act upon the promise. Some literary member pasted verses upon the wall of the Sexcentenary Club room, and damaged the wallpaper; that junior society was upset and needed calming.

In the October term of 1872 a resolution was passed in favour of introducing sliding seats into the second division. The slide was an innovation the value of which was debated, if not denied outright. Lehmann devotes twenty pages to the stroke made with its use in his ‘Complete Oarsman’, and anyone who has coached, however briefly, would agree that the proper integration of the slide is the most difficult part of the mystery of rowing for a crew to master. Slides were used in the Boat Race of 1873 and no-one thereafter considered abandoning them. But, like the keelless boat, the sliding seat tended to specialise rowing further and make it less accessible to casual oarsmen. The Club’s rules were revised this term and it was resolved that the badge should read ‘Peterhouse’, not ‘St. Peter’s College’. The training and practice of the Lent term have a modern ring: the full course was rowed four times, with frequent fast rows to the Plough; once they rowed to Clayhythe. On February 24 ‘porridge was instituted as a wholesome addition to the breakfasts’; it was urged that liquor be taken moderately.

In the October term of 1873 the sculls race was regularised; the course was fixed with the bottom station above Ditton Corner and the finish at Morley’s Holt. Athletics is ever more frequently mentioned, and Whalley, a member of the PBC, was President of the College Athletics Club. Trial eights were scrapped, and caps became an obsession; should they be striped, banded, or trimmed in white? In 1874 it was resolved by the CUBC (the PBC opposed) that there should be an upper finishing post near the Horse Grind for the first seven boats in a division, and for the rest a lower post about one hundred yards above the Railway Bridge at the Osier Beds. In the Lent term many members of the crew are said to be seedy, and they were not able to practise as a crew until a week before the bumps.

In the Michaelmas term of 1874 there were nine new members elected, trial eights were reorganized, and the cap’s design was altered. That settled, the jersey was reconsidered - should it be striped or trimmed? The majority reckoned the trimmed version pretty, so there was no change. The Lents and Mays of 1875 were dismal: the Mays were not open to the third division so Peterhouse did not row, and could give all its attention to dress.

In October of 1875 among the eight new members was William Stone, later, much later, a Benefactor. This term there were twenty-six members in the Club at a time when only thirty seven men were resident in College. It is therefore not surprising that getting up crews proved a problem. In the Lent term of 1876 the CUBC resolved that all colleges would be represented in the Mays and that sliding seats would be used in the second division. In the Lent races three boats were moved to a higher division, so lower crews filled up their places; hence the jump on the chart. It was resolved that the first boat blazer be single breasted with the cross keys on the left breast.

In the Michaelmas term of 1876 James Porter, who as a Fellow had rowed with a crew called ‘The Ancient Mariners’, was elected Master. Among the twelve new members of the PBC was H.G. Fuller; he was a Rugby Blue, later Captain and President of the CURFC, and an England International. In May 1881 he was officially thanked by the Club for rowing forty-five times in the first boat. The North wall of the sanctuary of the Chapel bears a brass in his honour. By his election in the Lent term of 1877 the Club may claim among its distinguished members William Ridgeway, a noted student of Greek archaeology. He was briefly acting secretary in the following year, but migrated to Caius in hopes of a Fellowship. Again the order of Lent boats was amended and we went up two places. The dearth of undergraduate oarsmen is demonstrated by the presence in the May crew of two clergymen: A. Lloyd, curate of Great St. Mary’s, was at 6 and the cox was G.F.Sams who had come up in 1863 and was the College Chaplain.

In the Michaelmas term of 1877 another new cap appears, this time bearing the College arms in silver. In the Lent term 1878 the first boat’s jacket is described as a single-breasted cutaway with white ribbon trim with the cross keys on the breast; other crews had flannel trim and a square cut jacket. The blue stripe disappears from the trousers. In the May term W.E. Barnes was elected a member. At just under eight stone he was a born cox; later he was a Fellow and Hulsean Professor of Divinity. Fen Court was built thanks to his generosity. An eight costing £50 and a four costing £40 were ordered from Logan. The colours of the cap badge were altered to red and gold.

In the Lent term of 1879 revised rules were printed and a copy is pasted down in the minute book. A great effort was made to put together a second eight; the first difficulty was not, for once, finding oarsmen, but securing coaches. When a tradition of skilful rowing in a college is broken, as by now it clearly was in Peterhouse, then the Club must turn outside to relearn the art. Professional coaching was by now no longer used, and the stronger clubs were in duty bound to assist the weaker if only for the sake of Cambridge rowing as a whole. A gifted oarsman can turn up anywhere, and in less than twenty years Peterhouse gave the ‘Varsity one of its most successful oars. Still, finding good coaching was, and is, difficult. This term six other boats were vying for a place and our second crew lost to the one which in the event got it.

In the Michaelmas term of 1879 there were seventeen new members and this allowed the trial eights to be revived after a lacuna. The winning crew’s time was 7’30” from the third station to the Railway Bridge. The cap is again an issue: should the arms be in silver or in the heraldic colours, if indeed there should be arms at all? should there be a mitre over the arms? should the cap have just a white stripe? In the Lent term of 1880 seven more members joined but a second crew again failed to get on. In May they challenged Pembroke II for their place at the bottom of the second division; this was vindicated, and the first boat in effect rose four places. General support from the non-pulling members of the Club was good. Beaumont of Downing coached. A bridge-to¬-bridge (i.e., from the little bridge above Bait’s Bite to the Railway Bridge) time of 8’39” is recorded and reckoned good.