Brasenose College Boat Club
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Brasenose College Boat Club
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| Established | terminus ante quem A.D. 1815 | ||||||||||
| Location | River Thames (known in Oxford as the Isis) | ||||||||||
| Senior Member | Professor G.T. Houlsby, MA DSc FREng FICE | ||||||||||
| Men's Captain | T.B. Gunter (J.L. Carlson in absentia) | ||||||||||
| Women's Captain | Amy Barker | ||||||||||
| BNCBC Home | |||||||||||
Brasenose College Boat Club (BNCBC) is the rowing club of Brasenose College, Oxford in Oxford, England. It is the oldest boat club in the world, having beaten Jesus College Boat Club in the first modern rowing race, held at Oxford in 1815. In addition to the 1815 "headship", the club has won both the Summer Eights and Torpids headship many times, and has recorded numerous victories in most events at the Henley Royal Regatta. The club's colours are black and gold, with black blades. The 1st VIII, however, may wear the distinctive "Childe of Hale" colours — red, purple and gold — which are synonymous with Brasenose rowing.
[edit] Historical overview
Brasenose has a long history on the water. One of the forebears of the current first boat raced in the very first Henley Regatta in 1839. BNCBC won the Visitors' at Henley in 1851 (the first "Royal" Regatta) rowing as "Childe of Hale Boat Club" in an attempt to hide their identities. In 1868 the stroke, W. B. "Guts Woodgate", of the BNCBC Stewards' Cup entry told the cox to jump out of the boat immediately after the start of the race. The crew went on to win the race but the umpire disqualified the crew. Five years later, the Regatta Stewards changed the event to one for coxless fours, with BNC crews going on to record legal wins in the event.
Past rowers include C.W. Kent, called the greatest stroke in the world in the 1890s,[1] and BNCBC member Andrew Lindsay who was part of the Great Britain Olympic 8 that won gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
A women's boat club was established with the admission of women undergraduates in 1974. The Women's VIII won blades in 2001 and is now competing with the best colleges, winning blades consecutively in Eights 2008 and Torpids 2009. Blues from OUWBC now join the list of College members to represent the University against Cambridge.
[edit] Brasenose College, Jesus College, and the beginnings of competitive rowing
The first record of a rowing race dates to 1815, with a race between Brasenose College and Jesus College on the Isis, which the Brasenose crew won.
In the early days of Oxford college rowing, these two colleges were the only crews competing, and were joined shortly thereafter by Christ Church and Exeter. Students would row to the inn at Sandford-on-Thames, a few miles south of Oxford, and race each other on the way back. The races would start at Iffley Lock and finish at King's Barge, off Christ Church Meadow. Flags hoisted on the barge would indicate the finishing order of the crews. Crews would set off one behind the other, the trailing boat(s) trying to catch, or "bump", the boat ahead. The bumped boat and the bumping boat would then drop out and the bumping boat would start the next day's race ahead of the bumped boat. The aim was to become the lead boat, known as Head of the River. For identification, crews wore college colours and emblazoned the rudder of the boat with the college coat of arms.
In 1822, crews from Jesus and Brasenose raced each other to become Head of the River. One Brasenose rower apparently "caught a crab", slowing the boat. The Brasenose boat was bumped by the Jesus boat, but then began to row again and finished ahead. As there were no definite rules in those days, both the Jesus and Brasenose men competed over which college's flag should be hoisted to denote the Headship. One of the Brasenose crew ended the dispute by saying "Quot homines tot sententiae, different men have different opinions, some like leeks and some like onions", referring to the leek emblem on the Jesus oars, and it was agreed to row the race again. The Brasenose crew won the rematch, and the incident has been said to be shown in an 1822 picture, the earliest depiction of an eights race at Oxford, painted by I. T. Serres (Marine Painter to George IV).[2]
To this day, Brasenose and Jesus Men's 1st VIIIs compete in an annual race on the Isis for the 1815 Challenge Plate. Brasenose is the current holder, having won by 1 length in 2010.
[edit] BNCBC and the "Childe of Hale"
John Middleton, the "Childe of Hale," was a 17th-century giant, standing over nine feet tall, from Hale in Lancashire. He accompanied his landlord, Sir Gilbert Ireland, to the court of James I, where he took on the King's champion wrestler and won. Sir Gilbert, later Lord of the Manor of Hale, was a member of Brasenose College at the time, and he brought Middleton to College on his return from court, where two life–size portraits were painted of him wearing his "London costume" - a fantastic outfit of red, purple and gold. When, in 1815, the students came to establish a Boat Club, it was this story and tradition that was used as inspiration. The Childe of Hale has since been a role model for generations of rowers and a portrait still hangs in the college. By tradition, the First VIII is always called "The Childe of Hale," and the First VIII colours are those of the Childe's London costume.
[edit] Brasenose at the Henley Royal Regatta
The first ever Henley Royal Regatta attracted four entries and it is recorded that:
- The Etonian Club were dressed in white guernseys with pale blue facings, rosette sky blue. Brasenose had blue striped guernseys, blue cap with gold tassel, rosette yellow, purple and crimson. Wadham wore white guernseys with narrow blue stripes, dark blue cap with light blue velvet band, and light blue scarf, and Trinity College were attired in blue striped guernseys, rosette French Blue.
Brasenose has won a number of championships at the Henley Royal Regatta, including the Diamond Challenge Sculls; the Stewards' Challenge Cup (in which Brasenose College Boat Club invented the coxless four; see details below); the Ladies' Challenge Plate; the Silver Goblets and Nickalls' Challenge Cup; and the Thames Challenge Cup; in addition to winning the Grand Challenge Cup in composites with Leander Club several times in a row in the 1890s.
More recently, Brasenose College Boat Club gave 1994 Temple Challenge Cup winners Imperial College their closest race of the regatta.
[edit] Brasenose and the invention of the coxless four
Walter Bradford Woodgate was larger than life. He once wagered he could walk the fifty-seven miles from Stones Chop House in London's Panton Street (near Leicester Square) to Brasenose in time for breakfast.[3] The leading oarsman of his age, he won eleven Henley titles in the 1860s, including three in two days in 1862, when he narrowly missed a fourth victory after dead-heating the final of the Diamonds. In a cause celebre, he introduced the coxless IV to this country, when he got his Brasenose cox, Frederic Weatherly (later a well-known lawyer and writer of the song "Danny Boy"), to jump overboard at the Henley start in 1868. While Weatherley narrowly escaped strangulation by the water lilies, Woodgate and his home-made steering device triumphed by 100 yards and were promptly disqualified. At Oxford the Reverend Woodgate's son earned pocket money by writing sermons. As a fresh-faced Brasenose freshman, he appeared as Lady Barbara in the College play, partook liberally of the wine and four kinds of punch at dinner afterwards, woke in his petticoats, and attended chapel with the rouge still on his cheeks. And two years later he founded Vincent's Club, "an elite social club of the picked hundred of the University, selected for all round qualities; social, physical and intellectual".[4]
A special Prize for four-oared crews without coxswains was offered at the regatta in 1869 when it was won by the Oxford Radleian Club and when Stewards’ became a coxless race in 1873, Woodgate “won his moral victory,” the Rowing Almanack later recalled. “Nothing but defeating a railway in an action at law could have given him so much pleasure.” [5]
Brasenose and "Childe of Hale Boat Club" went on to record legitimate victories in the event.
[edit] Headships at Torpids and Summer Eights
Brasenose holds the record for most consecutive headships in Torpids
The Childe of Hale made a strong bid to regain the headship in the 1990s, bumping as high as second on the river in Torpids and fourth on the river in Summer Eights.
[edit] Brasenose and the Boat Race
Brasenose has a rich tradition of representation in The Boat Race and in the other Oxford-Cambridge races. Below are the names of Brasenose students past and present who have won "blues" or colours competing for OUBC and the other university boats.
[edit] OUBC Blue Boat
- M.P. Plotkowiak (2007, 2009)
- J.W. Scrogin (2004)
- D.B. Perkins (2002)
- A.J.R. Lindsay (1997, 1998, 1999)
- R. Blanda (1997)
- R.H. Manners (1993)
- J.O.B. Sewall (1961)
- E.V. Vine (1954, 1955)
- E.C.B. Hammond (1953)
- W.J.H. Leckie (1949)
- W.W. Woodward (1948)
- J.C. Cherry (1936, 1937, 1938)
- S.R.C. Wood (1936)
- R.W. Holdsworth (1931, 1933, 1934)
- R.A.J. Poole (1931, 1932)
- C.M. Johnston (1930, 1931, 1932)
- J. de R. Kent (1932)
- G.M.L. Smith (1931)
- A. Graham (1929)
- J.C. Morphett (1929)
- Sir J.H. Croft (1926, 1927, 1928)
- H.C. Morphett (1928)
- G.H. Crawford (1926)
- G.J. Mower-White (1923, 1924, 1925)
- W.P. Mellen (1923)
- P.R. Wace (1923)
- N. Field (1910)
- H.C. de J. du Vallon (1901)
- H.R.K. Pechell (1896, 1897, 1898)
- W. Burton Stewart (1894, 1895)
- J.A. Ford (1892, 1893)
- C.W. Kent (1891)
- F. Wilkinson (1891)
- W.F.C. Holland (1887, 1888 1889, 1890)
- H.R. Parker (1887, 1888, 1889)
- L. Frere (1888)
- F.J. Humphreys (1884, 1885)
- E.L. Puxley (1883)
- R.H.J. Poole (1880, 1881)
- H.P. Marriott (1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879)
- T Edwards-moss (1875, 1876, 1877, 1878)
- J.P. Way (1874)
- H.W. Benson (1874)
- M.G. Farrer (1873)
- J.M. Clintock-Bunbury (1871)
- F. Crowder (1866, 1867)
- D. Pocklington (1864)
- R. Shepherd (1863)
- W.B. Woodgate (1862)
- W. Champneys (1861)
- H.F. Baxter (1859, 1860)
- W. Houghton (1849, 1852)
- R. Greenall (1852)
- K. Prescot (1852)
- J.J. Hornby (1849)
- F.E. Tuke (1845)
- J.J. Somers-Cocks (1841)
- G. Meynell (1840,1841)
- W. Lea (1841)
- E. Royds (1840, 1841)
- W.B. Garnett (1840)
- J.J. Somers-Cocks (1840)
- R.G. Walls (1839, 1840)
[edit] ISIS
- J.L. Carlson (2010)
- E.P. Newman (2010)
- A.N. Keats (2005)
- T.H. Baker (2001)
- T.J. Whitaker (1993)
- K.W. Kobach (1991, 1992)
- E.M. Martin (1983, 1984)
[edit] OULRC Blue Boat
- M. Neve (2010)
- B. Bell (1998)
- D. Brocklebank (1997)
- J. Bailey (1995)
- D. Bridges (1995)
- R. Weeks (1944)
- D. Long (1990)
- D. Horner (1989)
- P. Drew (1988)
- W. O’Chee (1987)
- J. Hawkins (1986)
- J. Kirwan (1986)
[edit] Nephthys
- H. Engel (2007)
- O. Gilmore (2002)
[edit] OUWLRC Blue Boat
- Dom Shields (1998)
- Roma Backhouse (1993)
- Sarah Phipps (1993)
- Karen Ball (1992)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ http://thames.me.uk/s00960.htm
- ^ http://www.archive.org/stream/oxfordrowinghist00sheruoft#page/10/mode/2up
- ^ "Crabbing at Henley". Henley Standard. July 5, 2010. http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/events/events.php?id=777730.
- ^ "Vincent's Club". http://www.vincents.org/history/ahappybreed/.
- ^ The Rowing Almanack, 1921, pp. 148–149.
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