text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Fletcher WAL

“Flea” (Spy), March 18, 1893
''The eldest son of Mr. Alfred Fletcher, J.P., D.L., and Director of the London and North-Western Railway Company, he was born at Allerton, near Liverpool, four-and-twenty years ago. Having learned the rudiments of education at Cheam, he proceeded to Eton to amplify his knowledge, where he first became an inmate of Mr. (now Dr.) Warre’s House, and afterwards sojourned with Mr. Wintle. But the river had more attraction for him than the Muses; and, although he had not been much of a boy in his early youth, he soon helped to win the Trial Eights, and went to Henley as No. 3 in the Eton Eight full five years back. When he was not pulling an oar he played football, and was 12th man at Oppidan Wall. At twenty he went up to the “House” at Oxford, and rowed on so well that he helped to win the Ladies’ Plate and the Thames Cup at Henley in 1889. A year later he stroked the Oxford Eight at Putney vigorously enough to break a Cambridge run of four victories. He was promoted to No. 7 next year, when Oxford, with one of the biggest and longest crews ever seen in a racing eight, reached “the Ship” a bare half-length in front of Cambridge. Last year he went up one more, and at No. 6 again saw the Light Blue crew follow him home: and in the same place he means to repeat the performance next Wednesday, having in the meantime been made President of the Oxford University Boat Club. He has twice rowed in winning Leander crews at Henley; with Vivian Nickalls he has won the Silver Goblets; and both the Pairs and the Fours at Oxford have added to his reputation until he has come to be regarded as one of the finest galley-slaves that have yet been seen.''

''There are six feet and three inches of him, and he weighs within a few pounds of fourteen stone. His chest, back, and stomach are all muscle; yet his shoulders are inferior and his arms comparatively inferior. He has a ruddy face, which is even ruddier after a hard race when other men look pale. He is so ready for a “rag” that he is always ruffling somebody’s hair; and less frequently he gets his own ruffled. Yet is he not so ferocious a person as he pretends to be, for a child has been seen to play with him. He takes a very large size in boots, and he is so fond of dogs that he shares his Oxford lodgings, in Alfred Street, with several of them, as well as with bow and No. 5 of his Eight. He has just managed to struggle through the School of Political Economy, and he hopes by getting through two more easy Schools to achieve the degree which was, of course, his object when he went up to Oxford.''

''His College has presented him with a handsome salver as the benefactor of the Christ Church Boat Club. He was a member of the Oxford Water Polo team; he has been President of the Oxford Etonian Club; and he is on the Committee of Vincent’s. He is a capital shot, a staunch friend, and a really good fellow, full of British pluck.''

His activity (perhaps) has earned for him the name of “Flea.”

The Boat Race career of William Alfred Littledale Fletcher (1869-1919) illustrates H.G. Gold’s comment that “[t]he choosing of a crew must always present a matter of very great difficulty to the coach, and, when chosen, the fitting of each man into his proper place, where he will be of the greatest value, is still harder.”#  Late in life Guy Nickalls called Fletcher an “absolute classic” for No. 6, but as O.U.B.C. President Nickalls boated him at stroke for the 1890 Boat Race. He was “hardly ideal” there, opined the Official Centenary History, “for although his beginning was marked like lightning, his finish was deceptive and it was not until late in practice that the crew began to come to him.” In Oxford’s one-length win “the doggedness, rather than the brilliance, of Fletcher was the outstanding feature.”  The next year Lord Ampthill did no better, putting himself at No. 6 and Fletcher at No. 7.  They won by half a length but “never developed the pace which they should have done,” muttered the Centenary History. Lord Ampthill “had at his command eight men who were, individually, perhaps the best that have ever been seen in residence together; yet, of the greatest of these, only one, [Stroke] C.W. Kent, rowed in his right place.” Finally, in 1892, President R.P.P. Rowe, the younger brother of Vanity Fair ’s G.D. Rowe, put Fletcher at No. 6 and Oxford won in record time. The next year Fletcher kept himself there and became the first Oxford rower of Vanity Fair to win four Boat Races, again in a new course record (18.45). He ended his competitive career that season by winning the Grand with Leander and the Silver Goblets with Vivian Nickalls, a pair the Times later called “probably the fastest that ever rowed at Henley.”

Fletcher coached the Oxford crews of 1894, 1897, and 1902-06, and the Cambridge crews of 1898-1900. For his services on the Cam helping the light blue end Oxford’s string of Boat Race victories, the C.U.B.C. gave him a silver salver, a gold stop-watch, and two silver candelabra. He then lost his touch, to judge from the record: of his five pre-1901 crews, only one lost (Cambridge 1898); of his five post-1901 crews, only one won (Oxford 1905). To the authors of the 1929 Official Centenary History, the fault lay largely and unforgivably in his abandoning the Oxford orthodox style:

''W.A.L. Fletcher was the next great coach [after R.S. de Havilland]. One of the greatest oarsmen himself, he learned the secret at Oxford and taught it to Cambridge in 1898 and 1899 -- a combination of swing and slide, together with a lightning entry -- and this was the foundation on which was built the magnificent Cambridge crew of 1900. At that period Fletcher reached the zenith of his fame as a coach; afterwards he coached many Oxford crews, but having poor material he turned his mind to the rig of his men blaming himself for their want of success. He forgot the physical side of oarsmanship, of which he had been so incomparable an authority, and remembered only the mechanical side. Under his coaching, Christ Church went head of the river at Oxford and won the Grand Challenge Cup in 1908, though it is but fair to state that there was little opposition in the Grand on that occasion, in consequence of the Olympic Regatta which took place immediately after Henley; but the style taught by Fletcher, which was so successful in these Christ Church crews, did not blend with the attempts at orthodoxy in which other colleges persevered, and the effect on Oxford rowing was deplorable.''

Apart from rowing and coaching, Fletcher was a big game hunter, explorer, and soldier. Hunting and exploring took him to Siberia, Kenya, and Tibet. Soldiering took him to South Africa and France. He missed coaching for the 1901 Boat Race to face off against the Boers, described earlier under “Oarsmen at War” and earning a D.S.O. “He spoke little, but meant all he said, and if he had once told a man to do something he could not imagine the possibility of its not being done -- either in rowing or anything else.”  In the 1914-18 war, Fletcher served as Captain of the 2/6th Rifle Battalion of the Liverpool Regiment. His troops suffered the second mustard gas attack of the war, at Armentières in July 1917, which wiped out two companies and incapacitated 440 men, including Fletcher himself. He was released from hospital two months later and resumed command, but was never the same and chose to give it up in July 1918. “Few beyond his intimate friends know what it cost him to ask to be relieved, not from any sense of personal pride,” wrote a fellow captain, “but from his intense love for his battalion.”

In January 1919, two months after the armistice, the governors of British amateur rowing -- such as remained of it -- met in London to discuss how to revive the sport. Attendees included Fletcher, acting chairman of the Henley Regatta; C.M. Pitman, acting secretary of the Amateur Rowing Association; G.D. Rowe, chairman of Leander; S.E. Swann, who due to the hiatus caused by the war was still President of the C.U.B.C.; and H.G. Gold. Fletcher’s motion to hold a scaled-down Henley Regatta the next summer carried unanimously. That event did come off, but Fletcher never saw it to fruition for he died on February 14, 1919 of broncho-pneumonia in the great influenza epidemic then sweeping the nation, which caught hold in his gas-weakened lungs. A bronze by G.D. Drinkwater stands in his memory in the O.U.B.C. boathouse, dedicated “by rowing men of both universities.”

University Sports, Part II: “The Serious Side”
By “Cambrioleur,” in Vanity Fair (March 27, 1912), covering the same ground as Woodgate had in 1873:

''Rags, bedders, dons, missions, tutors, lectures -- these are among the diversions of Cambridge life. Our real business is the playing of games of every sort. Nobody goes into training for a Tripos or a C.I.C.C.U. meeting, but for a Junior College Trial on the river a man will cheerfully forego his new accomplishment of smoking, rise at seven every day, and eat red beef-steaks without a murmur. As we get up about nine o’clock and go to bed about eleven, it is clear that the hours from two to seven or eight which we spend on our games are the most important part of the day. Real sportsmen, of course, begin their games before noon. I remember how surprised a new lecturer was when he was compelled to change the hour of his lectures from twelve to eleven, because, as one of his pupils quite seriously explained to him, “You know, sir, you clash with the beagles.” He had been trained in Germany, you see, and that was why he was surprised. His dictionary informed him that a beagle was a species of dog, a Spürhund, and in Germany no professor ever clashed with a Spürhund. It caused considerable comment a few years ago when Easter clashed with the Boat Race and the authorities refused to postpone Easter. As I have already explained, every afternoon is a half-holiday at Cambridge. The afternoon begins at two o’clock and ends at two o’clock on the following day. The justification for this system -- if it needs any justification -- is that athletics at Cambridge occupy the years which are elsewhere devoted to the acquisition of bad habits, and that during his three or four years at Cambridge the undergraduate learns to throw his whole energies into something which has no monetary value -- that is, no immediate money value. As a matter of fact, a Blue is worth about £120 per annum for life in the educational profession. There is always a demand for Blues to instil the same earnest ideals into the rising generation of boys. In my college everybody plays some game every afternoon -- everybody but that ass Hetherington Johnstone -- and he plays lacrosse.''

''Thus it will be seen that I have now reached the most important chapter of my theme. I have had to sit back and take a deep breath before grappling with it. It is frightfully momentous, this task of writing about Cambridge sport.''

''Had I the pen of “Camisis” and his almost unique knowledge of the Christian names of Cambridge athletes (the ones they don’t use and try to conceal from their best friends), had I the style of Mr. Sewell or Mr. F.B. Wilson, I might essay the task, even if I had -- as I have -- nothing whatever to say. How is one to say anything new about the Boat Race, for example? I observe that Mr. Guy Nickalls is rather keen on Cambridge this year, so I suppose we shall lose, as usual. I feel convinced that the rival strokes will get their men smartly off the mark punctually to the tick of time by Putney Church clock and arrive at Mortlake about twenty minutes later. Four or Five in one of the boats will show visible signs of distress, and Swann will spurt gamely more than once. It will be a ding-dong struggle past the Doves, and daylight will be showing between the rival eights at Chiswick Eyot. Of that much I feel confident. But who will reach Mortlake first and by how much, and who will be defeated, but not disgraced, and what the dickens it matters if they do -- these things are hidden from my eyes. I know that when Saturday comes I shall rush for a halfpenny paper like the rest of the world and feel seriously depressed for half-an-hour if we are beaten. Thousands of staid parsons and their doctors and solicitors will do just the same; and nobody will know why.''

''When the sun has been harnessed to drive our mills, and when we have captured the energy of the tides, some philosopher will arise and seek to turn this immense output of power from the brains and muscles of two or three thousand young men, the pick of the country, into some useful and productive channel. I believe they could drive a torpedo boat if they were properly geared. Centuries ago there was a misguided youth at St. Abbs Hall, the son of an American commission agent, who determined to turn an honest penny out of the boat-racing. Under the guidance of friends, who, I fear, judged his leg to be suitable for elongation, he opened a book on the Mays. As soon as the college was aware of this the entire eight, with their cox, came to him secretly by night, one at a time, and asked him what odds he would give against them staying head of the river. He started with cox at evens, but before he had got to bow he was giving three to one. They all invested half-a-crown against their boat. The thing seemed a dead cert. for him after that. When the rest of the college rolled up to back their boat he cheerfully gave them five to one. He booked nearly a hundred bets in sovereigns on those terms. Of course, the boat stayed head -- in fact, it did the course in record time, and the precocious layer found that he had to balance nine half-crowns against five hundred sovereigns.''

''This prodigious industry of athletics is mainly a growth of the last twenty years, though the Boat Race and the cricket match have been in existence for over seventy. Thirty years ago the average man was content to exercise himself on the Trumpington Grind, a solemn pedestrian excursion of five or six miles with conversational accompaniments. Now there are about twenty-five different games of sufficient rank to provoke inter-University contest. Of Blues and Half-Blues there must be nearly 200, all heroes. We speak of them with bated breath. Yesterday morning I heard two freshmen under my window.''

“Did you notice that chap in the corner?”

“Yes; he seemed a harmless sort of person.”

''“Harmless! That was Spinks, the hockey Blue.”''

''“Good Lord! And I talked to him as if he’d been just anybody!”''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Fletcher WAL


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Fogg-Elliot CT

“Fogg” (Spy), March 22, 1894
''Unlike most ‘Varsity oars he does not come from Eton, but reflects credit on Durham School, where he first learned to pull under the winged words of Mr. R.H. Poole; who had himself gone through the mill at Oxford before he rowed bow of the Dark Blue Eight fourteen years ago. From Durham he went to Trinity Hall in the October term of 1890, got into the Cambridge Eight at No. 7 in the year following; sat on the same thwart for two years, was “promoted” to No. 3 last year, and rowed at No. 6 on Saturday: whence it is clear that he can row on either side of a boat. On the Cam he has won the University Fours and Pairs, and he has also rowed at the Head of the River; though last year, as Captain of the Hall Boat Club, he rowed in the second boat and suffered bumps. At Henley, too, he has had his successes, having helped to win the Visitors’ for his College, and rowing No. 3 in the high class Leander Eight which carried off the Grand Challenge last year. Having achieved so much he was very properly chosen President of the Cambridge University Boat Club, when Mr. G.C. Kerr, of Trinity (also, oddly enough, a Durham man), left that pinnacle of aquatic fame vacant last summer. For he is generally held to be both a good oar and a good fellow.''

''He is a very strong young man, whose hair and moustachios are as white as his face is sometimes red; and, like most of our strong young barbarians, he is quite a good-tempered fellow. He is known as “Fogg,” and he is a puzzle; for it is impossible to tell where his forehead ends and his nose begins. Yet is he quite a popular boy, who is not nearly so fierce as he often looks. He was only beaten last Saturday because the Oxford crew were better than his own.''

He has occasional flashes of dry humour; and he thinks that he can wrestle.

After this appearance in Vanity Fair, Charles Thurston Fogg-Elliot (1870-1955) completed his rowing career by racing for Trinity Hall in the 1896 Grand. After university, he became secretary to Lords Barnard and Curzon, Curzon noting that Fogg-Elliot’s taciturnity and flowing yellow mustache made him seem “like of forlorn Viking.” In the 1914-18 war he was Captain in the Fourth Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.

Henley 1893: A Woodgate Sampler
From about 1890 to 1906, W.B. Woodgate previewed and dissected the Boat Race and Henley Regatta for Vanity Fair. Here is one of his full Henley reports, from July 13, 1893:

''A very thirsty Henley! Seldom, if ever, have more fluids been consumed on the course. On the third day even Leander were run out of mineral waters soon after 5 p.m. Houseboats were rather fewer. The very proper concession of Oxon frontages to some of the London Clubs has reduced the space available for houseboat moorings. In my opinion, every houseboat or owner thereof that advertised “to be let for the regatta,” after having obtained the favour of an anchorage, should be rigidly refused any entrée to the course in future. These moorings are dispensed to enable certain subscribers to the regatta to enjoy their holiday and to entertain, if they desire to do so. They are not given that they may be turned into cash by sub-letting. I hope the Conservancy will see to stopping this abuse in the future.''

''The throng on the river was great just before and after lunch each day and mostly so on Friday. I deprecate the current fashion of punt paddling when carried to any pace in excess of one and a-half miles in the hour. A punt holds a good deal of momentum, especially when laden with three or four damsels and their swains lounging on cushions in her. She is not under control like a boat handled with sculls: paddles cannot back water nor hold her sharply when collision is imminent. At the same time, the resource of paddling from the stern of punts or skiffs has great charms for the tyro. It looks easier, and is easier, to a beginner, than the manipulation of sculls in a crowd. Hence the superabundance of this mode of propulsion on regatta days. All sorts and conditions of land-lubbers loaf on the river at a modern Henley Regatta. Thirty years ago, when there was not one-sixth of the present fleet of pleasure craft, it was considered bad form to figure in a boat unless fully competent and up to racing class (at the regatta).''

''One piece of bad form has, I am glad to see, almost wholly vanished during the last four years -- namely, the display of coloured flannel coats (called “blazers”), pertaining to no recognised aquatic Club, still less to any Club that competes at Henley. Lawn-tennis jackets of an abnormal medley of colours, village cricket Club coats, etc., were for a season or two recently flaunted on the Reach by land-lubbers. Now they are properly scouted, and those who do not belong to contending Clubs wear plain mufti flannel jackets.''

''N.B.-- The old term “blazer” was applied only to a few of the more gorgeous College boating coats -- e.g., Lady Margaret, Magdalen, Balliol, Exeter; more sober jackets like those of Jesus (Cambridge), Trinity Hall, Pembroke Oxon, Dublin, the U.B.C.’s, Black Prince, and University College, each and all time-honoured on the course, were not so styled. When lawn tennis begat “Joseph coats” in every village nook, then the term “blazer” was snapped up and extended to these monstrosities.''

''The rowing was a very good standard in every entry. Leander were far ahead of all the Eights. They won the final heat of the “Grand” only half extended by London. London had beaten Thames with some ease, and Thames had disposed of the French crew. Black Prince was not in it, and Dublin, after a fast and gallant start, were equally left behind in their heat against Leander. Many had thought that a Cantab No. 7 might row “scissors” to an Oxford stroke; but Kerrison suited Kent well, and behind these two the rest of the men settled down to a mighty sweeping swing that carried all before it. The crew never once really galloped after halfway; had they done so, probably records would have been cut. As it was to win in 6 min. 56 sec. at a paddle from the head boat of Oxford (Magdalene) was a large order; and Magdalene had in their crew six “Blues,” two of them re-inlistments since the College races. The change of stroke, putting Guy Nickalls there, improved the Magdalene Eight in the last week; but they had not the all-round strength of Leander, nor were some of the men so long in the reach and swing, but untidy in finish, which hampered them. They improved much after they left their own storm-tossed tideway and reached smooth water. Another ten days, if they could have remained in England, would have made them very formidable for the Metropolitan Regatta.''

''London were second best; a good long reach forward, no bucket, and a ‘Varsity swing. Their fault was the feather under water; had they rowed as clean as Leander they might almost have won, for they were in better condition. One or two Leander men needed another fortnight’s training. Thames had some weak spots among their new hands, and though the general style was good, they had to lose their heat against their old rivals, London.''

''The Stewards’ Fours were a good lot -- either Thames or Chester good enough to win in many a season; but Magdalene were too good for all of them. The outcry against Thames for boring the Frenchmen in their heat was only excusable under the impulse of chivalry to visitors. No sane man who has seen Thames R.C.’s performances year after year ought to have dreamed of supposing that a bit of bad steering inferred foul play. The T.R.C. are too thorough sportsmen for any such game. Anyone may make an error in the heat of a race. The sportsman who shoots behind a hare or under a rocketer, and tailors his game for the nonce, might as reasonably be accused of blundering on purpose. Besides, with a competent umpire, lynx-eyed, in his wake, it would always be insanity for even an evil-disposed pilot to go out of his way to foul. If the race had been between two British crews, no one would have heard another word of the affair. The French style was quite British, and rather Oxonian; the French eight was about the stamp of a College crew halfway up the Oxford river. The men were weaker all round than most of their opponents, and not fully together. They would have made a good bid for the Thames Cup, and should about have won it; but as a matter of sport it was more correct and more plucky for them to fly at the highest game. Their four was better class than their eight; better together, cleaner, and speedier of its sort. The Frenchmen show that they appreciate the right principles of rowing. Some day, if they get stronger men and better together, they may turn the tables on us. Their boats are very well built, and fast.''

''Eton were a very hot crew, better than many of the Grand crews. Radley rowed exceedingly well, but had not the strength and age of the Etonians. It was a big order for the two boy crews to beat the various College crews, including the head of the Cam, in the way that they did. The pick of these two boy eights are going to Oxford, so it is said; which ought to make it rosy hereafter for the O.U.B.C. at Putney.''

''Third Trinity were a good College four, and well earned the Visitors’ Cup. Medway made a good début and a bold bid for the Wyfold. Their stroke’s recovery and finish might well be copied by many of the crack crews. Molesey just beat them; but the two crews were well ahead in merit of the rest of their field. In the Pairs, Fletcher and Vivian Nickalls were facile principes much the stronger; for style nothing was better than the Ford and Holland pair. Guy Nickalls had an easy win in the Sculls. Everyone appreciated the sportsmanlike manner in which he pulled up for a restart with Boyd, the Dublin sculler, when the latter had jammed his slide and stopped for repairs. Boyd and Kennedy, each in his turn, spread-eagled good opponents, but could make no headway against the resurrectionised ex-Oxford sculler, who seems to be as good an oar as ever -- may be even better.''

''There has been in certain journals a grumble against Leander and the composition of their crews, based upon the assumption that they monopolise all the talent, and so leave to other Clubs no material wherewith to win a Grand Challenge. Now, of last year’s winning Leander (Grand) crew, three of the best men were this year rowing for Magdalene, and another for New College, while Leander men were to be found in every crew of note. Each and all of these rowed for their College (or other) Clubs in priority to Leander; and the latter Club had to make up its team from what resources were left to it. That those remaining resources were strong is due to the prestige of the Club, which secures such a pick of membership.''

''Leander is not a “nursery” Club. It does not profess to educate oarsmen. Herein it differs essentially from University and from tideway Clubs, which teach the tyro ab ovo. Whereas the first rule of Leander is that the qualifications for admission to its pale are “good fellowship and proficiency in oarsmanship.”''

''Until an oarsman has graduated and has well earned his spurs, he is not even eligible for the Club. It is this principle which secures so much competition for admission to the Leander fold. The uniform is of itself a “diploma” in oarsmanship.''

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text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Pitman CM

“O.U.B.C.” (Spy), March 28, 1895
''At Eton, once upon a time, a crew of eight Pitmans beat an eight of Mr. Cornish’s House in a boat race. Charles Murray is the seventh of eight brothers; who included F.I. Pitman, the famous Light Blue stroke of 1884, 1885, and 1886, and T.T. Pitman, of the Eton Eight, who won the Half Mile Championship. Born in Edinburgh three-and-twenty years ago, he began to acquire book-learning at Temple Grove, East Sheen; whence he went to Eton, rowed and became Captain of the Boats, sculled, played the Wall game, learned a little more, and did other wholesome things; after which he went to New College and stroked a first-rate Oxford eight in his first year. A year later he rowed No. 7, and last year he stroked another eight: an office that he is to repeat on Saturday, when he hopes to watch eight Cambridge galley-slaves toiling in his wake for most of the distance between Putney and Mortlake. His other rowing achievements include the Grand and the Visitors’ at Henley, and the Oxford University Sculls, Pairs and Fours. He is the newest President of the Oxford University Boat Club, and a typical young barbarian of the better sort.''

''He is a cheerful, wholesome boy, full of pluck. He is also stroke of much judgment and an oar who always pulls his weight. He therefore proposes presently to get called to the Bar. He can tell a good story with pleasing inaccuracy, and he is often accused of unpunctuality; yet no one dislikes him. He is inclined to be lazy outside a boat; he can shoot, and he has been seen trying to play golf.''

He is the ruddy Secretary of Vincent’s; who is happily called “Cherry.”

Like H.B. Cotton, his predecessor as O.U.B.C. President, Charles Murray Pitman (1872-1948) won four successive Boat Races. In addition to the races listed in Vanity Fair, he rowed for New College in the Grand (1895-96), the Stewards’ (1895), and the Silver Goblets (1895-96) but took home no hardware on those occasions.

After taking his third class in law and history, Pitman became a barrister of the Inner Temple practising on the London and Southeast Circuit. During the 1914-18 war he served as assistant to the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, became Judge Advocate in 1924, and from 1933-45 was Official Referee of the Supreme Court. But he made time to co-author Rowing (with R.P.P. Rowe, 1898) and the Record of the University Boat Race (1909, and coach various crews on orthodox lines, including the 1920 Olympic eight. He was Captain of Leander in 1896, Secretary from 1905 to 1920, and President from 1942 to 1946.

By the way, “young barbarian,” a phrase Vanity Fair used with both Pitman and C.T. Fogg-Elliot, hales from Culture and Anarchy, an influential 1869 tract by Matthew Arnold of political and social criticism. Arnold segmented British society into the aristocracy, middle, and working classes in a chapter entitled “Barbarians, Philistines, Populace,” comparing Victorian aristocrats to the ancient Barbarians “to whom we all owe so much, and who reinvigorated and renewed our worn-out Europe”:

''The Barbarians. . . had the passion for field-sports; and they have handed it on to our aristocratic class, who of this passion too, as of the passion for asserting one’s personal liberty, are the great natural stronghold. The care of the Barbarians for the body, and for all manly exercises; the vigour, good looks, and fine complexion which they acquired and perpetuated in their families by these means, -- all this may be observed still in our aristocratic class.''

The Silvery Thames
Pitman entertained rowing friends from around the world at Remenham Lodge, his “White House” overlooking the Henley course. Here is Vanity Fair ’s nostalgic and Imperialist paean to the river (July 3, 1912), alluding to the Henley Regatta visit by King George V and Queen Mary, the first by a reigning monarch:

''The presence of Henley Week, which this year will indeed be Royal in more senses than one, is but one more needed reminder that the River Thames does not, in fact, never has received the homage which it deserves. The lines of Sir Walter Raleigh cannot be equalled for a poetic epitome of the glories of the most famous of the world’s rivers: --''

“There are two things scarce matched in the universe -- the sun in heaven and the Thames on earth.”

''When one considers that the first University, the most famous of our public schools, to say nothing of the metropolis of the Empire, it is no matter of wonderment that the Imperialist is as proud of the Thames as any Oxonian or the Etonian who is privileged to claim that masterpiece of Henry of Wykeham as his Alma Mater. To the historian the places mentioned are but mere passing references to shrines of historic fact, to which must necessarily be added Windsor and Hampton Court. But it is to the lover of the beautiful that the Thames reveals its manifold charms. There may perhaps be more majestic charms in the grandeur of the Rhine or the St. Lawrence, or even in the wooded slopes of the Meuse or the Moselle, but to the lover of a silver stream set in a long, river valley, rich in English, beautiful, interchanging meadowland and forest, it is certain that the glorious Thames, to the artist, has charms that a brush delights to paint such vistas as the view of Windsor Castle from the river, or the quietude of a summer’s evening at Mapledurham Mill.''

''It is indeed a pity that society has hitherto despised the Thames, and neither would it be just to attribute such neglect to the much detracted English climate, for some of the best summers we have had have seen this curious cold shoulder turned on the river; and it is to be feared, with the exception of the Brigade of Guards Regatta and Henley, the Thames is a dead letter, and consequently has become deplorably bourgeois. The only saving feature of the situation is the steady, consistent lovers of the river, to whom its old abbeys, churches, and bridges with a storied past alternate with riverside houses, gardens, and houseboats. Here a stretch of dark, still water; there the splashing murmur of a tossing weir, and then a quiet, ancient village, which is so typical of the rural life which has been so characteristic of English country peace for so many centuries.''

''It is easy to understand how the River Thames has been identified so closely with English life and runs like a silver thread through the main events of our history. Its very situation has made it the natural centre of all the great events that have occurred in its vicinity. Not a century since the occupation by the Romans of London has the Thames valley been without the addition of some fresh monument of an historical character, and hardly a space has not some cherished memory. Oxford, Abingdon, Reading, Runnymede are but links in that chain of events that has made the reading of English history a delight of all literary students. It was my full intention, being Henley Week, to have devoted a large amount of space to the Thames I love so well, but I hope to return to the charge next week.''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Pitman CM


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Crum WE

“Crumbo” (Spy), March 19, 1896
''Mr. Walter Eskine Crum, who is always called “Crumbo,” was born nearly two-and-twenty years ago: and he is now quite a fine specimen of young English manhood. Having learned to play cricket at Castlemount, Dover, he went to Mr. Durnford’s at Eton; where he took to the water so naturally that four years ago he was rowing for Eton at Henley. After this he was made Captain of the Boats; and, when he went up to New College in October, 1893, he got his Blue while yet a freshman. He has twice won the University Fours; and twice, with Pitman, has he beaten all other ‘Varsity Pairs. He has also helped to win the Grand and the Visitors’ at Henley; and next week he hopes, for the third time, to see eight Cambridge men toiling behind his boat from Hammersmith to Mortlake.''

''His chief peculiarities are a beautiful complexion, an almost girlish look, a very frequent blush (which is the outcome of much modesty), a temper that will bear much chaff, and a chin that in times of depression looks as though it would fall off and explode on the floor. Nevertheless, he is so generally liked that he gets their best work out of his men, and consequently he makes an excellent Dark Blue President. His rowing is so exceedingly graceful, easy, and effective, that he is probably one of the best No 7’s that ever sat in a boat; wherefore his uncle, Mr. J. C. Tinné -- that magnificent Dark Blue heavy-weight of the late sixties -- shows an amount of pride in the boy that is quite refreshing to witness. Beyond this he is a sportsman who can shoot high pheasants very well; while he has played football and taken a third class in Mathematical Moderations, and means to do something scientific in his Finals. He is a very well-built young fellow of much symmetry and proportion, except as to his arms; which are long. He is full of youth, and he delights in a bonfire. Nevertheless, he is a very good fellow, and a cheerful, staunch friend who displays much ignorance of our standard novelists.''

He wears large boots.

Walter Eskine Crum (1874-1923) won four Boat Races (1894-97), as well as the Ladies’ (1893 for Eton), Visitors’ (1894 for New College), and Grand (1894 and 1897 for New College). To the Times “he ranked among the best No. 7’s Oxford has ever known; for grace and ease of style he was, indeed, the ideal oarsman.” It is thus all the more amazing that he and C.M. Pitman, who together won the 1895 University Pairs, were unable to hold off Guy and Vivian Nickalls in that year’s Goblets, as Guy described:

''In the afternoon, in the Pairs, “V.” and I met Crum and Pitman in the heat for the Goblets. Fifty yards above the top of the Island I steered into a pile, a fearful crack which split the boat. Luckily, we were rowing with swivels, and it didn’t take long to clear ourselves and get going again, but in the interlude, Pitman and Crum spurted and had taken several lengths off us. With a very leaky boat and a bent rowlock we started out to chase them. It looked hopeless, but by dint of great efforts and a high stroke, we caught them at the half-mile mark. We led at Fawley by half a length, getting slower and slower as the water rose over our heel traps. By superhuman efforts we had a length and a half at the mile, with the water over my insteps. The water continued to rise, and we were not clear of them when we passed over the line.''

Professionally, Crum spent his short life in India, where he became President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Imperial Legislative Council, and was knighted in 1920. During the 1914-18 war he was a major in the Calcutta Light Horse. He died of heart failure in 1923 while in New York on business.

The 1896 Boat Race
W.B. Woodgate’s account for Vanity Fair (April 2, 1896):

''A better race was never seen between two eights from Putney to Mortlake; also a better average of joint style and merit, in most adverse circumstances of weather, would be hard to find. The wind and water were enough to knock most crews out of form in half a mile; and yet, in these two crews, style was maintained to the end -- no going to pieces, no rowing short. In the last minute Cambridge were twice buried in spray from rollers which struck the after stroke side rowlocks, and which smothered the looms of the oars on that side to an extent to check recovery for the instant. Except for this, the losers, as well as winners, might have been paddling on parade from the start, so far as level action was concerned.''

''The merits of strategy and generalship, which snatched the race out of the fire for Oxford, are self-apparent. The Metropolitan Course is, all round, a fair one -- on smooth water. That is, the trends and bends on one side are sooner or later practically counterpoised by similar concessions to the opposite station. Surrey side is voted modern times the best, generally speaking, under the “revised” rules of boat-racing which forbid taking of water save at peril. The reason for the choice is that the main advantage accrues in the first twelve to thirteen minutes of the race, and is enough, geometrically, to enable the crew on that side, if otherwise equal in pace with its rival, to obtain a clear length’s lead at Thorneycroft’s, and so cross clear, and enjoy the benefit of the bend to the right for the rest of the course: the rival, by hypothesis, being no better, and therefore unable to overtake and to claim evacuation of the stolen water. It was in 1870 that Oxford set fashion at defiance by choosing this side after winning the toss. It was only this that enabled them to make so good a fight as they did on that occasion. Since then the merits of the Surrey side have been more appreciated; and it has usually, though not always, been selected since that date. In a nor’-easter, off the Fulham shore, the old favourite side, Middlesex, remains the best. The Surrey station had extra advantage this year up to Chiswick, because of the beam wind which blew in Putney Reach, in which wind Oxford were to leeward. That Oxford should have been only their own length behind at Thorneycroft’s with all this handicap is evidence that up to that point they must have been virtually travelling the faster of the two. Accordingly, when at last the vantage of station became theirs, it was but a sequitur that they should begin to overhaul the leaders; and the only question was whether they had time to complete their task before the drop of the judge’s flag.''

''It is curious to note how the sporting Press plumped for Cambridge, and how they after the event attempted to make excuses for their miscalculation of relative merits. The critics pinned their faith on the short-distance spins of Cambridge against sundry scratch eights, in which great speed was shown. They overlooked the relative want of staying power shown by Cambridge when they last rowed a full course on the ebb. Also, by a sort of blind consent, Oxford’s stroke was voted and published as “short” compared to that of Cambridge. Yet, in the race, this so-called “shorter” stroke held its own from the outside station in the worst of the wind; doing some one and a-half (average of) strokes per minute fewer than the Cambridge men did during the first two-thirds of the course. This fact shows that eyesight was at fault when it measured the Oxford reach as the shorter of the two -- not that Cambridge were short: far from it. Why the Oxford stroke had more propelling power, stroke for stroke, than that of Cambridge seems to be this: Oxford had rather more grip of the “beginning”; Cambridge rather “felt” the water before they threw their full force on to the oar. On the other hand, Oxford had more of a “drive” at the instant of catching the water, and so got well hold of the boat before she began to slip away. If a light boat is not caught sharp at the beginning of the stroke, much of her resistance is distributed, thereby lessening the effect of the stroke. Slow burning powders are well enough for heavy missiles; for pellets a quick propulsion is needed.''

''Two more powerful crews have seldom, if ever, opposed each other. Differing from the sporting Press, I estimate these crews as being both of them faster than the average, and better over the course than last year’s winners. Some of the men were extra good; all were up to par, and worthy of being “Blues” -- and this cannot be said every year -- still less of the whole list of ordinary losing crews. Even winners often contain a man or two who only gets his seat because, though he is bad, other candidates are worse; and he is admittedly many degrees below the standard of his colleagues. Nothing of this sort can be said of any of the sixteen this season. It is hard lines that so good a stroke as Fernie, and so good a crew as that behind him, should be unable to score a win by reason of clashing with an extra good crew.''

''Jack Clasper, the builder, deserves commendation for his handiwork, both as to power of holding way after the stroke, and also for buoyancy in rough water. The manner in which both ships rode through the waters was admirable.''

''The accounts of the relative positions of the boats during the race, as shown on diagrams and in text, are conflicting, and in many cases, I think, erroneous. The greatest lead which Cambridge had was just when the boats straightened for Corney Reach, below Chiswick Eyot. There were 35 feet to 40 feet of daylight then. It is erroneous, not to say uncomplimentary to both strokes, to depict them, as some reports do, spurting suddenly in the middle of the course at from 30 a minute to 34 or more, and then dropping back again to slower stroke. That is not the way in which high-class strokes race. Nor were the two strokes guilty of such mistakes. Save at a pinch, to save a cross or to reach a winning-post a few lengths off, strokes do not suddenly quicken nor whimsically vary their rate. They try to settle down to the rate which does them and their men best justice, with regard to water, wind, and position in the course. If they quicken, they do so gradually, not to risk dislocation of swing. It reads graphically in a report to speak of violent “spurts” in the middle of a long course; but these spurts exist only in the imagination of the non-aquatic reporters.''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Crum WE


text:
User talk:Mansurirafiq~enwikibooks

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User talk:Likata~enwikibooks

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Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Likata. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Likata~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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User talk:Stu1965

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 14:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

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User talk:Ctr tanc

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 14:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

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Cookbook talk:North Staffordshire Oatcakes

Excellent
These are excellent. Highly recommended. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.236.15.222 (discuss • contribs) 2008-01-13T01:57:31

English?
Oatcakes? English? The two don't go well together. Try Scotland where they're eaten regularly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.193.214.2 (discuss • contribs) 2008-04-16T00:41:22


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Guinness RECL

“Rupert” (Spy), November 9, 1905
Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness, the heir to Viscount Iveagh and appropriate millions, is a plump, square, well-complexioned young man, who looks out upon a friendly world with a shrewd good nature.

''At Eton he set himself to the oar with the best will in the world. He won the School Sculling in ‘92, and rowed in the fine Eton eight which won the Ladies’ Plate at Henley in ‘93. He looked sweet in his blue coat, as was then universally admitted. Arriving in due course at Cambridge, he was welcomed by “Third Trinity” as a valuable rowing asset. He won the Diamonds at Henley in ‘95 and the Diamonds and Wingfield Sculls in ‘96. But he had the bad luck to develop a weakness of heart, which kept him from his place in the Cambridge eight. Since his University days he has served in Africa with the Irish hospital, and become a politician, a Director of the London and North-Western, a member of the L.C.C., and the commander of the London Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, whose saucey fleet lies proudly at anchor off Blackfriars Bridge. He is contesting Haggerston, and his supporters in that constituency are confident of his success, as is ever the custom of their kind.''

''He used to hunt before he motored. He is quite a good shot. He is a strong Tariff Reformer. His popularity in Haggerston is not diminished by his generosity and the interest he takes in the Workmen’s Rowing Club on the Lee. He is not a great orator, but has a breezy, direct style of speaking which scores his points and tells on political platforms. He is a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, but is rarely ill at sea. He has a taste for old furniture, and has of late been adorning his new house in St. James’s Square. He is most fortunately and happily married. He never gambles; but he has had adventures.''

Rupert Edward Cecil Guinness (1874-1967) joined Thames R.C. while a Cambridge undergraduate to have a London base to train with Bill East, the 1891 English professional sculling champion. “[A]lthough not what any one would term a born sculler,” Guy Nickalls recalled, “[Guinness] confined himself to sculling and obtained useful proficiency by dint of long and careful practice with East.” This “useful proficiency” included beating Guy or his brother Vivian or both to win the Diamonds and the Wingfield Sculls in 1895 and 1896, a hard thing to do those years. Many years later Guinness, then head of the family firm, rewarded East by setting him up as landlord of the Three Pigeons pub in Richmond. Until being moved to the Henley River and Rowing Museum, the boat that carried Guinness’ thirteen-stone hung in the balcony of the Thames R.C., of which he was president from 1911 until his death fifty-six years later. He was also president of the National Amateur Rowing Association.

Vanity Fair featured Guinness before his unsuccessful 1906 run for Parliament. He won the Haggerston seat two years later, lost it in 1910, and was reelected in 1912 for southeast Essex -- the seat F.C. Rasch, another Eton and Third Trinity oarsman, had held from 1886 to 1908. Guinness kept it until 1927, when on the death of his father he became the Earl of Iveagh and chairman of Arthur Guinness, Son & Co., Ltd. Despite the responsibilities of running a major brewing company he spent considerable time and money throughout his life on science and philanthropy, in recognition for which he became chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin and of the University of Reading and a fellow of the Royal Society. He was a governor of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine endowed by his father, and founded the Wright-Fleming Institute of Microbiology. Guinness also funded research at the Rothamsted Institute (formerly owned by yet another Eton and Third Trinity oarsman, C.B. Lawes), and advanced dairy farming through bottling and sterilization methods to reduce the incidence of bovine tuberculosis, among other measures. By the end of his life, Elveden, his Suffolk estate, became the largest dairy farm in England, producing over a half a million gallons of milk per year. Like his rowing career -- fueled by a vision, will power, and resources -- “[t]he experiment succeeded largely because of Lord Iveagh’s driving persistence and determinination to carry it through and because he had the means to experiment on so large a scale, and the resources to be able to accept losses on the farm in the early years before the enterprise could become fully efficient and eventually profitable.”

Henley 1895 and 1896: The Diamond Sculls
Vivian Nickalls, Guy’s younger brother, beat Rupert Guinness in the 1894 Diamonds by three-quarters of a length. The following year Guinness returned the favor on Guy, who at the time had already raced for (and won) the Pairs, the Stewards’, and the Wyfolds, the second being in his opinion “a really magnificent race, ding-dong the whole damned way over the course” against a “very hot Thames R.C. four” that included S.D. Muttlebury. Guinness, by contrast, “confined his efforts to sculling” and thus had only had “two nice gentle pipe-openers and no race out of him that day.” W.B. Woodgate, who in his day likewise raced several events at one regatta, enjoyed Guinness’ performance but sympathized with the tired Nickalls in Vanity Fair (July 18, 1895):

''It was temporary insanity of Guy Nickalls, glutton for work and stayer though he is, to tackle a vastly improved sculler like young Guinness in the final “Diamonds” heat after the severe prior races and on the leeward station, while Guinness was fresh. Guy Nickalls struggled grandly all the way, but could never get on level terms with his man. Only those who have gone to the post a second and third time in a day, after punishing races, can realise the actual pain of warming up stiff and tired muscles in the first half of the race, and the limp feeling of weariness towards the close, when depleted muscle can no longer strain to its normal power. Guinness has now got his hands beautifully level, both on entry and on feather; his sliding also has much improved; he might still nurse his slide a trifle later after the first catch, and emulate Hanlan’s actions; but anyhow he is already high-class, and will become a clinker.''

Guy Nickalls had pulled a bicep at Henley but three weeks later met Guinness again, in the Wingfield Sculls, which he recounted thus:

''I was a fool to go for the Wingfield’s, three weeks later, as I should have known that if an arm once gives on the tideway it nearly always goes again, and that is exactly what happened. When I was leading comfortably at the Doves my arm suddenly went again, and as he passed me, I told Rupert he need not hurry as my arm had given out. Opposite Thorneycroft’s he hit a log, and knocked a slice off the blade of his scull, which made his work all lop-sided. Above Barnes my pilot kept shouting to me to go on, but I shook my head. It was impossible with my arm to make any effort when, suddenly, I found myself catching him and at last level, and, only twenty yards to go, I made a despairing effort, got ahead, and then the gate of my swivel burst open. Out came my scull and overboard I went, and we both literally floated together over the winning post, but, as he was in his boat and I was not, he naturally won, and my only salve came some two days later when my brother Vivian beat him in the final and won his third [Metropolitan] Championship.''

The next year, in 1896, Guinness met and beat Vivian Nickalls in the Diamonds. Woodgate’s verdict for Vanity Fair (July 16, 1896):

''The sculling was of a higher class than I can remember. I have seen better scullers than Guinness, the winner -- e.g., Guy Nickalls -- when at his best, the late T.C. Edwardes-Moss and (young) Frank Playford; but I never saw so many rivals each of whom was better than many a man whose name stands on the silver plates of the Diamonds box -- V. Nickalls, Swann, and Beaumont as instances. To have been the best in such a field is of itself a record in the annals of the prize. V. Nickalls was handicapped by handling an oar in two other crews, while his opponents could stick solely to sculling. My estimate of the detraction of oars upon sculling practice is this: If A and B are dead-level scullers on the 1st of April, then A goes to work with an oar, and grinds regularly and hard in a crew (in order to keep that crew going, and to get it into condition), and only sculls in spare moments up to the 1st of July, while B meantime devotes himself solely to sculling, B will be some four lengths better in a nine minutes’ race than A by the 1st of July; and it will take A another two or three months exclusive sculling after that to get back to level terms with B.''

''The reason is that the main speed in sculling depends on level actions of hands -- into the water and out of it. If one hand gets one-twentieth of a second start or a fraction of an inch more stretch, or one blade varies one degree of an angle in the water, the boat turns to the pressure: then the advantage stolen by the one hand has to be abandoned and eased off before the end of the same stroke, in order to bring the keel straight. All this is waste of powder and loss of speed. Now, an oar does not work a man all through in one plane; hence it tends to produce some irregularity in sculling action when the oarsman presently uses the same muscles from a sculling seat. Still more, the time spent at the oar is lost to sculling practice.''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Guinness RECL


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Gold HG

“Tarka” (Spy), March 23, 1899
''The President of the Oxford University Boat Club, who hopes to stroke his fourth ‘Varsity Eight to victory on Saturday, became the fourth (and last) son of Mr. Henry Gold, of Hedsor, in Bucks, three-and-twenty years ago. Having acquired the name of “Tarka” in the nursery when his own name was too big for him, he went to Eton; where he is still remembered in “Hoppy’s” House. He took to the oar so well that for three successive years he stroked the Eton Eight to victory in the Race for the Ladies’ Plate at Henley; and his memory is so strong that Eton has gone on winning that Plate ever since. So he was made Captain of the Boats -- after he had got his Field Colours for football; and, accordingly, like so many good Eton oars, went to Oxford, to provide Magdalene College with a credit to the Isis. He was made stroke of the ‘Varsity Eight right off; and in his first race he cut Cambridge down almost on the post, winning after a desperate struggle. In 1897 he stroked one of the best Oxford Eights ever sent out, and won again; and last year he was able to watch Cambridge rowing after him to the Ship. Besides this, he stroked Leander at Henley in 1896, when he won the Grand Challenge and defeated Yale; and, though New College just beat him the year after, he won the same race at last year’s Regatta; while in two of three years he also stroked the Leander Four to victory in the race for the Stewards’ Cup. Yet with all these and other triumphs he has never won a race at Eton or Oxford with the single exception of the ‘Varsity Pairs in 1897!''

''He is a sturdily-built young fellow, with extraordinary powers of endurance; who can probably get as much out of seven other men in a boat as any stroke living. He is a good fellow and an all-round sportsman; who, while he can ride well and shoot with promise, hates walking. Nevertheless, in pious imitation of his father (who thinks nothing of playing sixty holes a day on the Hedsor links), he has lately taken to golf. He has a dry humour that is quite his own; he can play the host; he can tell a story; but, unlike the rest of his family, he does not sing -- much. He has met the examiners on several occasions; and, though sometimes defeated, he has managed in the end to score.''

He has wonderful knees; and his legs are always loudly appreciated by the crowd at Putney.

“The best stroke I have ever rowed behind was Harcourt [Gilbey] Gold” (1876-1952), wrote Guy Nickalls, who rowed No. 6 in Gold’s 1895 and 1896 Leander crews for the Grand (and later married his older sister). Save for an 1897 appearance in the Goblets at bow, stroke was the only seat Gold ever rowed at Henley or in the Boat Race, winning ten of fourteen such events. The 1899 Boat Race was not among the victories, however, as Cambridge won by over three lengths to end Oxford’s nine-year run and keep Gold from becoming the first stroke to win four. He returned the favor a decade later, by coaching Bob Bourne’s Oxford crew to the first of his four straight wins and thereby holding Duggie Stuart of Cambridge to three. Gold coached eighteen Oxford crews in all, as well as Nickalls’ Leander VIII that won the 1908 Olympic regatta at Henley.

Gold was Captain of Leander from 1898 through 1900. He became a steward of the Henley Regatta in 1909 and joined its management committee in 1919, that year causing the creation of the stewards’ enclosure to give the regatta the financial sustenance of a regular subscriber base. (Woodgate opposed the move: he thought it would foster elitism.)  Gold published The Common Sense of Coaching in 1920 for Oxford college coaches with little experience, encouraging “unlimited patience and good temper” and cautioning “[i]t is probable as many crews have been marred as have been made from the bank.”  In 1945, he succeeded C.M. Pitman, his fellow Etonian and immediate predecessor as Oxford’s stroke, as chairman of the regatta. In 1948 Gold became chairman of the Amateur Rowing Association, on which for many years he had represented the O.U.B.C., and the following year received the first knighthood for services to rowing. In the 1914-18 war, Gold joined the Royal Flying Corps and was discharged a Lieutenant Colonel. Professionally, like another Oxford Etonian G.D. Rowe, Gold had his own stockbrokerage, Harcourt Gold & Co.

Romance and Rowing
Guy Nickalls married H.G. Gold’s elder sister, and Nickalls’ son Gully married Gold’s daughter. Gold himself married a sister of G.S. Maclagan, who coxed his 1899 Oxford crew and the 1908 Leander Olympic eight that Gold coached and in which Nickalls rowed. The connection between romance and rowing drew the attention of Vanity Fair in an article by “A Bachelor” (June 28, 1873), who apparently had not himself so benefitted:

''The attendance at the Oxford and Cambridge match and at the Henley Regatta seems to show that athletics are not on the decline as an art for wooing Englishwomen. We recollect rowing in a public school crew at Henley and hearing two girls fairer than sunlight exclaim as we got into our boat and were adjusting the stretchers, “Oh, the darlings!” They were wearing our light blue colours, and it is a certainty that the blood of the whole eight of us tingled to our finger-tips, and that we rowed like desperation on the strength of being darlings. But a Trinity Cambridge crew pulled the Ladies’ Plate from us, and as we stepped out of the boat with our tongues lolling and our faces red as bricks these same water-nymphs cried indignantly in our hearing -- “Oh, the muffs!” The fact is they had bet gloves on our success, and the defeat we had suffered -- it was not an ignominious one, only half a boat’s length -- was too much for their nerves. They trampled our colours with scorn under their pretty boots, and would unquestionably have voted for our being pitched into the river had it been the custom to make an end of vanquished oarsmen as of worsted gladiators at Rome. It is a question whether in England it does not occasionally pay better to be a victorious athlete than a good scholar. . . . Cricketers, and oarsmen, too, play havoc in society as Detrimentals, and have a knack of carrying off heiresses in the teeth of circumstances and of richer gnashing suitors. At worst they win girls who have connections instead of money, and the connections, after growling a bit for the form of the thing, locate the man of muscle in some snug post of emolument provided for out of the Consolidated Fund. This comes of the difficulty of browbeating or despising a man who has his chambers full of prize-cups or presentation bats won by flood and field. . . .''

At times the direct route to matrimony lay through the father of the bride, as recounted in Vanity Fair (March 27, 1875) following that year’s Boat Race:

A propos ''of the University boat-race, the Paris Figaro tells a story of a “Mr. James Oxen,” who made his fortune by steering the Oxford crew. It seems that fifteen years ago Mr. Oxen’s boat being behind that of Cambridge, a voice from the bank suddenly roared, “James, my boy, if you cut Cambridge in two my daughter is yours.” By “a vigorous pull at his rudder,” Mr. Oxen showed himself equal to the occasion. He did not strike Cambridge amidships, but he landed his own boat winner by half a length, and shortly afterwards married the heiress of a grateful parent “who had won a colossal sum in bets.”''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Gold HG


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/1899 - 1914 Fairbairnism and Foreigners

1899 - 1914: Fairbairnism and Foreigners
In 1899 Cambridge won the Boat Race for the first time since Muttlebury’s crew in 1890. Cambridge won seven of the next nine, the last three with Duggie Stuart and his so-called “sculling style.” In 1901 Oxford coach D.H. McLean died in the South African war. In 1904 Steve Fairbairn returned from Australia to his alma mater, Jesus College, Cambridge, where he produced successful, distinctly unorthodox crews for the next thirty years (save of course for the 1914-19 hiatus). Result: Oxford’s orthodox went into a spell of doubt and self-criticism, which ended only with the Leander Olympic victory in 1908, Edmond Warre’s lectures “On the Grammar of Rowing” in 1907 and 1909, and Bob Bourne’s four-year run in the Boat Race starting in 1909, all played out in the pages of Vanity Fair.

At the same time, the numbers and quality of foreign entries at Henley Regatta were increasing, setting off stress fractures throughout the community of gentlemen amateurs who were already straining under the largely domestic problem of defining what it meant to be an “amateur.” Vanity Fair had plenty to say about these subjects as well.

While “Fairbairnism” and “foreigners” challenged the old order, “females” by and large did not. The suffragist movement that McKenna confronted before the 1914-18 war and which included Dilke’s Women’s Property Act of 1870 and the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878 among its roots, had no serious counterpart in rowing, though women did take up the sport in numbers as part of the late Victorian fashion for boating. Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall, new Oxford colleges for women, both established boat clubs in 1884 and some twenty years later a university boat club for women was formed, but the O.U.W.B.C. rules of 1906 made clear the subordinate status of women’s rowing at the time:

 * Rule 1: Young ladies shall take their outings at such times that they do not encounter gentlemen’s crews.

 * Rule 2: They shall have a draw string in their skirt hems so that no ankle is exposed.

 * Rule 3: If coaching by a gentleman is desired leave must be obtained from their moral tutors and a gentleman cox must act as a chaperone.

In similar vein, the Amateur Rowing Association decided in 1907 that it “did not legislate for ladies and therefore could not affiliate clubs containing ladies,” thus effectively blackballing them from ARA clubs in the same manner as manual laborers and “professionals.”

Since the rowing coverage in Vanity Fair was almost exclusively dedicated to the Boat Race and Henley Regatta, the magazine paid no note to these developments, its sole reference to women in rowing being the appearance of a guest woman coxswain for the 1885 Oxford crew:

''The Oxford University Boat Club, with its old gallantry, is about to acknowledge the very useful steering of the eight by a lady, at Bourne End, during the absence of the coxswain, Mr. Humphreys. The fair lady is the most graceful gondolier either in England or on the Continent, and has already distinguished herself at the oar under the able tuition and in the company of her husband.''


text:
Italian/Grammar/Pronunciation and alphabet

see also Italian/Introduction/Pronunciation

Italian Alphabet and Sounds
The Italian alphabet is identical to the English one but the sound of certain letters is different. Double letters sound stronger and more stressed than single ones. Every letter or sound is represented in one unique way, and every letter is always read in the same way, with the exception of ‘’c’’ and ‘’g’’ whose pronunciation depends on following vowel (similarly to English) and ‘’s’’ and ‘’z’’ that can be both pronounced voiced or not.

 * Since J, K, W, X and Y are not originally "Italian" letters (since they only appear in foreign words), they are pronounced exactly as in English. J used to be an "Italian" letter, but was officially removed from the alphabet in around the early 20th century. X is a common letter in Sicilian language words derived from Greek. Thus, when certain toponyms and family names are rendered in Italian, they preserve the X. Examples include Bettino Craxi, or Sant'Angelo Muxaro. In these examples, the X is pronounced similar to English KS.

Particular phonemes
There are, however, digraphs/trigraphs that have their own particular phonemes:

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

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text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Etherington-Smith RB

“Ethel” (Spy), August 5, 1908
“Ethel” started on the race of this life in 1877 close by the Putney to Mortlake course, within a few days of the only dead-heat recorded in the annals of the Inter-University Boat Race, in 1877, and just fourteen years after his father had won the 1863 Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Regatta.

He was educated at Repton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he amassed most of the titular distinctions indicated in the alphabet above.

''Having won the Colquohoun Sculls, the Lowe Double Sculls, the University Pairs and Fours, and rowed twice Head of the River, he, in 1899, became President of the C.U.B.C., when he materially assisted in preventing Oxford from gaining her tenth successive victory in the Boat Race. In 1900 he was again victorious in a crew which has the proud distinction of having completed the course in a time which has never been beaten and only once equalled. He has been Captain of Leander on four occasions, viz., 1903, 1905, 1906, 1908, and has won the Grand Challenge three times and the Stewards’ Cup twice, besides being runner-up for the Diamond Sculls against F.S. Kelly in 1902. But Leander’s decisive victory over the Belgians the other day is, probably, the incident he is proudest of being associated with.''

Not only as an athlete has he gained distinction; he is demonstrator of anatomy at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and has held all the residential appointments, including that of House Surgeon.

''As a physician he has cured the evils which beset the under and over-trained oarsman, and has written cleverly on the subject. As a surgeon he has proved that apparently hopeless cases of fractured limbs can be set to rights under the manipulation of his deft fingers.''

He likes himself best as an anatomical study for his pupils, and as a sculler, but he is at his best as an oarsman and friend.

As a motor cyclist he is a danger to himself and the public.

“The finest and handsomest young athlete I ever drew as an under-graduate,” wrote Leslie Ward, “was R.B. Etherington-Smith [(1877-1913)], known to his intimates as ‘Ethel.’” In fact Ethel took his first degree in 1899, nine years before Ward drew him for Vanity Fair to mark Leander’s victory in the 1908 London Olympics. At age thirty-one he captained the crew, apologizing to teammate Guy Nickalls who was ten years older: “I suppose they have asked me because I am about half-way down the line between yourself and Bucknall in age.”

Etherington-Smith died just after his thirty-sixth birthday from blood poisoning contracted while operating on a patient who had gangrene of the lung.

Staleness in Oarsmen
“From close observation of many crews, I think staleness is a weakening of the will to win,” wrote H.G. Gold, “due principally to a crew suddenly realising the superiority of its opponents.” Etherington-Smith, in contrast, included staleness among the “evils which beset the under and over-trained oarsman,” and though mere alcohol may not thrill Cole Porter, for Ethel it was just the thing for the old ennui:

It is almost invariably found that at a certain period of training the men show signs of the hard work they have been undertaking by feeling “out of sorts.” They are depressed in spirits, feel tired and disinclined for exercise, lose their usual hearty appetite, and go down in weight.

. . ..

''This so-called staleness, which, as I have already said, is but a stage on the high-road to racing condition, is a very curious phenomenon and somewhat difficult to satisfactorily account for. No doubt it is in great measure due to the hard physical work which has been accomplished, the body feeling the strain of the much-increased rate of metabolism necessitated thereby, but there is also a very marked nervous element.''

. . ..

''In the treatment of staleness champagne is of great value; indeed, when a man begins to show the signs of overwork a bottle of champagne for dinner in place of his ordinary liquor will often suffice to pull him round. As a rule, it is not wise to give champagne except under these circumstances, or to allow it on more than two evenings during training, but should any man remain below par for several days without any sign of improvement he may be given champagne diluted with mineral water as his regular beverage for lunch and dinner.''

A week-end visit to the seaside is a splendid antidote to this kind of staleness; the bracing air and change of scene, even for so short a period, often work wonders in restoring the cheerful spirits and brisk demeanour which are so characteristic of a well-trained crew.


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Chapman WH

“C.U.B.C.” (Spy), April 2, 1903
''Born on the 13th of December, 1879, he is known amongst his friends as “Teddy” for the sufficient reason that his brother’s name is Edward. At fourteen he went to Eton, and there learned to row so well that he won the Ladies’ Plate in ‘97 and ‘98 as bow of the Eton crew. He also ran so well that he won the School Mile, Steeplechase, and Half-Mile. Of course he was in “Pop,” and was popular at Eton, though on one occasion his tutor is said to have dissented from the general opinion when a misadventure, while testing a rope fire-escape one Sunday afternoon in May, landed him among the Fourth of June geraniums above his tutor’s porch. Trinity College, Cambridge, having been chosen to put the final polish on him, he determined that Oxford should not win a tenth successive Boat Race; so he was placed bow in the famous Cambridge crew of ‘99, and “Tabslogging” went out of fashion. Owing to the unfortunate arrangement which still fixes the Boat Race and the Sports within a few days of each other, he decided to confine his energies to the muddy Cam, preferring the tideway to Queen’s Club. Comparatively light and slightly built, he is an extraordinarily hard worker who never shirks his duties. He is quaint and original, not particular about dress, and a good friend, who is much liked by all who know him and by many who do not.''

''In February, 1900, Second Lieutenant W.H. Chapman, of the Yorks Militia, might have been seen at Southampton struggling to get his men on board a transport for South Africa. Still, he was not slow in gaining knowledge of the drill-book on active service; and the Boers showed their instinctive wiliness by keeping out of his reach. Nevertheless, Captain Chapman was invalided home with fever in March of 1901; so he coached the Third Trinity May Boat to the Head of the River, and again showed his powers when Third Trinity won the University Fours. Last year saw him on his old thwart in the winning Cambridge crew, and he made up at Henley for the previous year’s enforced idleness by helping to win the Grand Challenge and the Stewards’ Fours for Third Trinity.''

He has a vivid imagination, but he is probably the best bow on the Thames.

Wilfrid Hubert Chapman (1879-1915), “though light, was probably the most dashing bow who ever rowed in that place,” according to the Boat Race Official Centenary History, “and it was always difficult to find a two who could hold him.” Vanity Fair featured him on the eve of his third and final Boat Race, which went off as follows:

''At the start Mr. F.I. Pitman, who was officiating as umpire for the first time, had some difficulty with the pistol, an antiquated affair which from time immemorial had been handed to the starter by old Tom Tims. The pistol stuck at half-cock, and refused to go off for several seconds. At the words “Are you ready?” Cambridge had squared their blades and the man in the stakeboat was unable to hold them against the drag of the tide. Oxford were held more firmly, and so it was that Cambridge got a flying start of about a third of a length which the umpire, who was too taken up with the pistol in his hands, failed to notice. This was most unfortunate, for the Oxford crew were dismayed at having been slipped, so easily it seemed, and rowed like a beaten crew from the first stroke. The Cambridge crew also were upset by the incident and never really got together until quite near the finish of the race. However, it made no difference to the result, for Oxford were quite outclassed. Cambridge gained steadily and were two and three-quarters lengths ahead at Hammersmith (7 min. 15 sec.), four and a half lengths ahead at Barnes (16 min. 16 sec.), and won without exerting themselves by six lengths in 19 min. 33 sec.''

Chapman went on to win the Stewards’ that year and the next with Third Trinity, and the 1904 Grand with Leander in his only race for that club.

When the 1914-18 war broke out, Chapman was working for the Bombay Company in Karachi. He asked for leave to enlist but was refused, so quit to rejoin the Sixth Yorkshire Regiment, commanded by his cousin. Both of them were among the first killed in the August 7, 1915 landing at Suvla Bay in the Dardanelles, an operation that eventually took 40,000 British and Anzac lives. Captain Chapman was the only rower of Vanity Fair to fall in action during the 1914-18 war. W.F.D. Smith and R.C. Bourne also served at Suvla Bay but survived.

Henley 1901: Leander v. University of Pennsylvania
Cornell entered the Grand Challege Cup in 1895 and Yale in 1896, neither advancing to the finals. The University of Pennsylvania entry of 1901 held the most promise (or threat, depending on perspective) of the first foreign victory in the event. However, while Lieutenant Chapman was fighting Boers, Leander with Dudley-Ward and Etherington-Smith held off the Quakers, as Woodgate reported in Vanity Fair (July 11, 1901):

''The Grand Challenge Cup, with its destination, is naturally the leading feature of Henley at any time, and never more so than this year, when the best American eight that has up to now invaded us were threatening an expatriation of the Cup. If they had succeeded it might have been said that our rowing coaches of the old country would have to go to school again, and to learn American doctrines. And yet, even if such a disaster had overtaken us, the deduction would still have been unsound in certain respects. There are four main desiderata for good quality in a crew: 1, strength; 2, style (of applying that strength); 3, unison; 4, condition. The last-named comes practically first in any race of more than three or four minutes’ duration. Also unison (No. 3) is of special importance; in light boats a crew not in unison tend to roll, and this, by lacing the spine of the oarsman out of the vertical, cripples the use of his trunk, and tells most against the capabilities of a crew that when steady on the keel use their bodies correctly. Again, on sliding seats, unison of drive of the legs is very important. So much so that, for illustration, if crew A have four men who slide quite correctly and four more who slide faultily, and crew B have eight men all sliding faultily, but with uniformity of fault, then the last-named (ceteris paribus as to strength and condition) may be expected go the faster. Still, this admission should not justify a coach of an irregularly sliding crew A in teaching his one or two best sliders to come down to the level of the inferior. He should rather strive, to the last hour, to raise all to the higher standard. To return to the comparison between Leander and Pennsylvania. Leander had the strength and the better general style. They used their bodies with orthodox swing, and fully employed the “gluteus maximus,” the strongest muscle in the human frame. They were short of practice, and by no means wound up in condition as compared to what is usually seen in Oxford and Cambridge crews at Putney. The Americans, while trusting mainly to slide, with a minimum of swing, and while finishing the stroke mainly with biceps and neglecting shoulder action to bring the oar home, worked in a perfect unison, far ahead in this respect of most British crews, while as to condition they were thoroughly fit, and had been in work for months. Leander were not manned until the Monday fortnight before the Regatta. They had only fourteen days actual rowing in the eight before the Regatta began: and even those fourteen days were intermittent, with a four and a pair dividing attention; while the Americans had no practice outside their eight to divert or to fatigue them. Leander raced themselves towards condition. Had they met Pennsylvania on the Wednesday before they had the benefit of trial-heat gallops against New College and Belgium they might have just failed -- for “wind” -- to get home! The draw was lucky for them in this respect. In the race on Friday the actual start was in favour of Leander, who got in their second and third strokes ahead of those of their opponents. Then both settled down; Leander at a more leisurely stroke than when they raced the Belgians on Thursday: Americans were, to the eye, rowing some four or five strokes more in the minute, and they stole gradually ahead until they had a lead of 10 ft, more or less, at the end of a minute and a-half. Du Vallon’s oar (Leander 2) was dipping opposite to the space between 3 and 5 of America. Then that status remained for another minute. Then came a Leander rush below Fawley Court which took Leander in front about as much as they had been behind. After that Leander steadied at a slower stroke, and held their lead, and added a foot or two by the bridge gate. Then Pennsylvania made their last effort, and for a quarter of a minute drew up a trifle. Just below the Leander Inclosure Leander forced the pace again, and went faster than ever. They were nearly clear at the Isthmian, had twenty feet daylight at the Grand Stand, and eased just before the flag fell, winning by an official length. It was “bellows to mend” with sundry of the least trained of Leander when the race was over. The Americans seemed less blown, and naturally so: they simply had been unable to go the pace of the last half of the race; but they must have the credit of giving the hottest race for the Cup of all American visitors. The Leander were a good average for Grand Challenge winners -- e.g., not equal to Leander of ‘93, and better than Leander of ‘98. Another week of training would have made much difference in them.''

''There is a strong feeling among Henley oarsmen that, the Grand having been rescued this year, the Regatta should now be closed against foreign entries; because (1), when such visitors come, they specially prepare for weeks, months, and even years, for their coup, selecting their one occasion; (2) they enter for their one race only, which gives of itself special advantage, where the British Clubs are entering and practising simultaneously for a plurality of cups; (3) if British crews, in order to meet these specialised visitors on more equal terms, were to confine themselves to one cup only, the sport would suffer by reduction of entries for other events; (4) a bogus glamour of so-called “International” competition is thrown upon the racing under the present circumstances; whereas, as seen above, British crews cannot put forth their best and undivided strength for any one cup without thereby spoiling the Regatta sport. If the “closing” should take place in future, then to show that it is not fear of visitors, in the abstract, which prompts the policy, I should be glad to see some International prizes founded for eights and fours to be rowed (say, about the 20th to the 30th of July) at Henley or Putney. Such prizes would, perhaps, not bring out English crews to renew Henley battles if there were no “visitors.” Accordingly, it might be understood that in the absence of any foreign challenges booked before a given time (say, the 1st of May) there would be no International Regatta  for the year. It would be a nuisance, undoubtedly, for British crews to have to keep on training in event of challenges; but the nuisance would, all round, be less than the risk of letting the “Grand” be lost by some half scratch and overworked British crew, or the alternative of seeing all other Henley entries crippled in competition for the sake of meeting our visitors on more equal terms: e.g., Leander pair scratched on Thursday solely to keep Burnell and Payne from rowing a third race in one day, on the eve of a so-called International battle for the Grand, while the Americans were resting from their labours.''

After months of controversy, including a proposal from W.H. Grenfell that the Henley Regatta exclude “foreigners and colonials,” the stewards decided at a special meeting in November 1901 that “it is inexpedient that any alteration in the Rules of the Regatta be at present made.”

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Chapman WH