1880 – 1914 #

In the Michaelmas term of 1880 there were two new members elected who distinguished themselves in ‘Varsity sports: J.G. Tait, the Club’s Secretary in October 1882, was a Rugby Blue (his father, Professor Tait, was a member in 1852); and F.H. Rawlins became President of the University Swimming Club. Light ships were not being rowed thanks to a CUBC ruling. Trial eights were cancelled because many men had gone out of residence to avoid sickness. In the Michaelmas term of 1881 the prize for the College Sculls was a pair of two guinea sculls to be kept, and the silver challenge sculls for a year. In the May term of 1882 the Captain, Sample, was awarded his oar, and the coxswain his rudder, in memory of the crew’s three bumps. In the Michaelmas term of that year Sample’s younger brother, later a Rugby Blue, became a member along with our College’s historian, T.A. Walker. The Lents of 1883 were enlivened by the sudden departure of Fuller after the second night: he was summoned to play against Scotland. The fact that there were six scratch fours got up this term is evidence of a revived interest in rowing. The ‘Mays’ of 1883 were the first to be held in June, so as not to be interfered with by the examinations. The crew began to move up through the ranks once again, and the Captain attributed their success to beer. Fuller returned to his oar three days before the races. The numerous changes in men right up to the races generally throughout the colleges argue only a vague sense that the crew should work as a unit.

There were twelve new members elected in Michaelmas 1883; one was E.C. Marchant of Christ’s Hospital, later a noted student of Thucydides and sub¬-Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. He coxed a trial eight. In the Lent term of 1884 the minutes record the first bump supper so called. After dinner in Hall the forty revellers strayed into Old Court, where the Dean is said to have joined them for an hour; one man reduced the wooden scaffolding then encompassing the Chapel to a ruinous state. After the Mays four men in the first boat were awarded their oars for two bumps and two row-overs: in three years the boat had climbed to the top of the second division from the bottom. One night they recorded a start of 40 strokes a minute.

In October of 1884 the Amalgamated Athletic Club was founded, and henceforth it becomes hard to know who was elected a member and to judge of the membership. The sum collected to clear the Boat Club’s debt was £92/15. This term there were fourteen new members and in 1885 nineteen. In October 1886 it was resolved by the CUBC at the suggestion of its President, F.I. Pitman, that the continuity between the Lents and Mays be broken and that the terms’ races now be independent of one another. Up to this time there had been three divisions. The first rowed only in the Mays, and the third only in the Lents. Thus only the second division rowed in both the Lents and the Mays. The consequence of this was that some small clubs never rowed in the Mays. Henceforth there were to be two new divisions in both terms, 31 boats in the Lents and 30 in the Mays. The Lent boats were to be clinker-built with fixed seats. All May boats were to have slides; the first division of the Mays rowed in light craft, the second in tubs. Furthermore the racing was fixed at four days in each term. In the clubs the effect of this adjustment was to make the May boat the more important, and it alone was called the first boat. In the PBC it was proposed that there should be three captains; one for the first boat, one for the Lent boat, and one for any other crews. W.L. Plaskitt was presented with his oar after six years of service to the Club.

In the Michaelmas term of 1887 one of the new members was F.C. Bree¬-Frink, a Rugby Blue (at the moment his grand-daughter, Elisabeth Frink, is modelling a bust of the Master to be cast in bronze). The College, it is clear, produced a number of footballers in these years, and this may account for the less than memorable rowing. The Lent races of 1888 were cut short by a fatal accident. Clare bumped Queens’ and pulled into the far bank just beyond the First Post Corner. Trinity Hall III made a poor corner and ran across the river; the steel prow struck the Clare 4 man, E.S. Campbell, above the heart; his death was instant. Rubber knobs were thereafter placed over the point. (The incident is turned to graphic profit in Alan St. Aubyn’s novel ‘A Fellow of Trinity’.) In the May term the question arose as to the shade of blue to be worn; it seems to have lightened over the years and some wanted a reversion to the old dark blue. This issue-surfaces again in the October term of 1889 and 1890. But alteration was voted down, and our present royal blue seems to have been accidentally arrived at. (In the bumps chart of 1846 however the blue used to track the path of the Peterhouse boat is far from dark, nor yet a sky blue.)

In the Michaelmas term of 1890 the scratch pairs drew twenty-four entrants; which indicates a healthy number of oarsmen. In the Mays of 1891 sickness beset the Club, and it is cited also in 1893,’94,’95,1901,’03 as a cause of decline: this is not malingering, for Jesus reckon their fall at one point as due to the sickness of the Fairbairn brothers. In the Michaelmas term of 1891 one of the new members was R. Hamblin Smith, a Lawn Tennis Blue. The Mays of 1892 were remarkable for a thunderstorm on the first evening in which a man was killed on the towpath. (This storm was also laid under contribution in the novel just mentioned, as well as in E.F. Benson’s ‘David of King’s’.) Our minutes give it full account. In October 1893 one of the new members, R.B. Redwood, became a Cycling Blue, as did F.W. Chisman, who matriculated in 1895. This was the high summer of English Athleticism, and the light Blue was the peak of undergraduate ambition. The College boasted a fair number of Blues in such sports as fencing and lawn tennis, but no longer were the men members of the P.B.C. - ‘non ragioniam di lor’. By now the other sports were emancipated from the Boat Club’s guardianship, and the variety of amusements took men off the water. Thus in October 1894 a minute complains that the practice of the trial eights was disturbed by football engagements. Yet even at Jesus, where aquatic glory was a fresh memory, there was only one rowing Blue among eighteen others. In the Lent term of 1895 the river was frozen for a long time, so practice must have been impossible. But with the thaw came an influenza epidemic, and it was that which prompted the CUBC to postpone the races to the next year. In the Mays the PBC pulled itself together and took to rigorous practice. They had a new fast boat, costing £50 with its oars, and rowed five ‘Clayhythes’, i.e., they carried the boat around Bait’s Bite lock and rowed on to the ‘Bridge Hotel’ at Clayhythe. A ditch-time is recorded; 1’27”. The result was gratifying: three bumps and one row over. The Club gave a dance on the Tuesday night which lasted to past five in the next morning, and held its bump supper on the Wednesday.

The time was ripe for revival and in the October term of 1895 the Club found a leading oar in J.E. Payne, whose younger brother, E.R., came up a couple of years later. The elder Payne rowed in the winning Blue Boats of 1899 and 1900; in that year he was Honorary Secretary of the CUBC. In 1901 he rowed for the Grand in the winning Leander crew; the race figures in Lehmann’s ‘Complete Oarsman’, Payne being singled out. In his account of this term’s trial eights the secretary notes how few crabs were caught; from a cursory reading of the minutes one has an impression that crabs were very common even in the better boats. In the Lent term of 1896 the crew practised with a new-found regularity and rowed full courses after going to Clayhythe. The crew won their oars; six of them as well as the cox were freshmen. In the May term a boat flag was presented by Mrs J.D.H. Dickson, whose husband, now a Fellow, had been a member of the PBC some twenty-five years before; a photograph was taken of the ladies, who were elected honorary members for their generosity, along with some oarsmen on the lawn of the Fellows’ Garden.

In the October term of 1896 the Club entered the ‘Varsity Clinker Fours. Coached by R.B. Etherington-Smith, a noted oar and writer of the article on training in the ‘Complete Oarsman’, the PBC won. There is a full account of the racing in the first issue of the Sexcentenary Club’s magazine, ‘The Sex’, for Lent 1897. The journal was regularly published up to the mid-1950’s, and its rowing correspondent is often fuller in his accounts of racing and of personalities than the minute books. One learns from ‘The Sex’ that it was an immemorial custom for the cox to waken crew members when in training; all then went for a walk and sprint before breakfast to the first mile post down the Trumpington Road. This term a dark blue scarf was added to the uniform officially. In the College only twelve men matriculated, and one of those few who joined the PBC was R.H. Thornton, a Water Polo Blue. Payne won his trial cap. And it was proposed to build a boat house. This matter was pursued in the Lent term of 1897; the cost of the freehold of the land was reckoned at £280, and of the building to be erected £600 (by comparison Pembroke had spent £1800). In the Michaelmas term of 1897 G. du Vallon, a Boxing Blue, and Captain of the PBC in the next year, was elected a member. In the Lent term of 1898 the bump on the final night was made on 3’s rigger, of the upper boat! Four bumps followed in the Mays. In the Lent term of 1899 the Club resolved to hire boats for its casual races rather than leave the competitors to hire their own. Peterhouse again won the Clinker fours and the Master (Dr Porter) sent over half-a-dozen of his champagne (‘excellent’) to help the celebrations in a special Guest Hall. A racing start of 46 was recorded. In the Lent term of 1900 the Clinker Fours were still the PBC’s province, and on this occasion a bump supper was held in Hall. The Mays were crowned with success. Both Paynes were in the boat, which went up five places, each a bump, to return after thirty-three years to the first division. On the first night the Emmanuel II cox was so rattled that he drove his boat up the bank and sank her. (Another defensive tactic of the coxswain’s art, now lost in upper divisions, was washing off a bump by waggling the rudder rapidly to wave off the attacking prow but not alter his own boat’s course.) It is noteworthy that the supper does not seem to have been held. In the Lent term of 1902 the crew went to Hunstanton on the coast the weekend before the races; this jaunt became something of an intermittent tradition over the next few years; it is last mentioned before the Mays of 1933. In the Mays of 1902 we had a new boat, 56 feet long and 2’4” at her broadest; she rose to tenth in the first division, a position she was not to maintain.

Henceforth Fortune frowns. Sickness and the ‘war of coaches’ show their effect on crews. Also there seems to have been one of those periodic disenchantments with rowing (which follow often on a period of success; such was the case in Trinity Hall and Jesus). Captains were finding it difficult to get crews together at all. Large colleges with solid traditions of rowing weather these doldrums and their crews lurk in the middle or lower reaches of the first division awaiting a renascence. But a small club’s fall will be as rapid as its rise.

In the trial eights of the Michaelmas term for 1902 there rowed A.F. Jackson. A memorial brass in the chapel commemorates his work as a missionary in China, which even the Emperor acknowledged with a large gift towards the foundation of a hospital in his memory. Jackson also rowed in the Lent and May Boats of 1903. In the Michaelmas term of this year one of the trial boats was almost wholly manned by soccer players. One coxswain, Rose-Innes, was later a Hockey Blue. On the fashion front, linen hats with blue bands were being worn. In the Michaelmas term of 1905 J.M. Drysdale of Shrewsbury School joined the PBC; in October 1908 he was Captain anct our best scull perpetuates his name. In 1957 he gave £400 to the recently established Boat Club Trust Fund. The rules were revised and dress regulations are both complex and dazzling. Mr Mario Cortegiano wrote to the Master, Dr Ward, offering to teach the crew the Venetian style of rowing; an opportunity scorned. In the Lent term of 1906 ‘The Sex’ gives an account of the College Regatta, previously mentioned; it seems to have been disorderly and amusing. On the first day of this term’s bumps a member of the third Jesus boat died in an accident unconnected with the river; his club did not row that day, and so our first boat did not claim its bump when it rowed past the starting place of a boat now regarded as a traditional ‘enemy’, Jesus II.

The next couple of years do not offer matter worthy of record, and even the minutes are scrappy. The pattern of trial eights and a regatta at either end of the academic year continues. In the Lent term of 1910 the first eight were awarded the blades, not the whole oar, since a total of four bumps was reckoned as now essential for that honour; so blades alone were also awarded to the first May crew for three bumps. In the Michaelmas term of 1910 P.C. Vellacott, later Tutor (1920-34) and then Master (1939-54), rowed in a trial eight; when a Fellow, he always favoured the Club’s interest, and when he was Master, he started what is now the custom of giving Club members breakfast on the first morning of the May races: this is first recorded in the 1954 minutes. In that year he was elected president of the PBC, an honour that is not the Master’s ex officio. In the Lent term of 1911 an emblazoned oar was presented to the Sex Club to perpetuate the successes of the 1910 first boat.

From the May term of 1911 up to the Great War there is frequent reference to the difficulty of getting a crew together. So in the May term of 1912 the senior scholar was asked to hold a full college meeting and to encourage men to put themselves forward. Two reasons can be offered to explain this lack of interest: first, athletics fixtures conflicted with practice times, and secondly, slack discipline proved demoralising. As to the first point, Vellacott urged that the claims of the boat were superior to those of any other sport. It is recorded that in the Michaelmas term of 1912 there were three flags, and that the minute books were to be deposited in the library (whither the account books followed them in March 1914).