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The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Pemberton M

“A Puritan’s Wife” (Spy), February 4, 1897
''Though he is but three-and-thirty years of age, he is an old Merchant Taylor; who took a Mathematical Scholarship, broke his arm, resigned the Honour, and went up to Caius. He might by this time have been a dull Mathematician, with a glorious record put by in the secret places of Cambridge; but he had too much in him to become the slave of an exact science. So he rowed and trifled alternately, till “Jelly” Churchill asked him to take the seventh oar in the Light Blue Eight: which he declined to do, but took his degree and came to town. One day he passed the office of Vanity Fair, and a bright idea struck him. He walked in, and was shown a speaking-tube. Through that channel he boisterously offered a contribution, which became the first of many. That was ten years ago; and that bright idea made him. He quickly developed literary tastes, and when he had done much fugitive work another idea struck him. The House of Cassell felt it too; and the combination resulted in the boys’ paper which is called Chums. That led to “The Iron Pirate”; which earned for its author the style of the “Jules Verne of England.” But there are other pirates; and the Americans (according to one of their own papers) bought seven hundred thousands stolen copies of his: which has made him very careful in the matter of transatlantic copyright. Since then the story has been translated into four languages -- besides American and Russian. A year later he published “Sea Wolves”; and last year he wrote “The Impregnable City.” Then he began to edit Cassell’s new “Pocket Library,” and contributed to it “The Little Huguenot.” He has since published “A Puritan’s Wife”; and his “Christine of the Hills” is expected “in a few days.” Besides all this he contributes light literature to a dozen journals and magazines; he reviews books for The Daily Chronicle; he has furnished several theatres with curtain-raisers; he has produced an Opera in New York; he has edited an important volume on Football; he runs Cassell's Magazine ; and fills up the odd corners of his time with telling and writing stories -- more or less vain.''

''He is a very cheery, busy, active, volatile, nervous man, who has a pretty wit, an admirable wife, and a fund of excitable imagination. He is restless, full of energy, and the owner of a ringing voice which has been used to advantage on the towpath. Yet he wears a very decided chin under his good looks, and professes to be a judge of champagne. He was once ready to write for ordinary rates; but now he commands high prices. He has many friends; he is fond of all sport, owns an array of “pots” for each of which he has run, likes riding, and plays the host well.''

He can sing a comic song with a voice which no pianoforte can drown.

Max Pemberton (1863-1950) rowed for Caius in the 1884 Ladies’ and Visitors’, losing to Muttlebury’s Eton eight in a heat of the former. “The Caius first boat did fairly well during the two years I rowed in it,” Pemberton recalled, “and the excursion to Henley was a merry business even though we brought back no medals”:

''Our luck certainly was not good, but our spirits were high. We might have won the Visitors’ had not the umpire’s launch stopped suddenly on the way to the post and mangled the bows of our four horribly. In the Ladies’ we ran up against one of the heaviest Eton Eights that ever rowed at Henley. While we averaged a little more than ten stone a man, they must have made nearly twelve, and they beat us handsomely. Well do I remember an old Irish woman who stood on the Bridge as we passed under, humiliated by defeat, and who cried down to us: “Arrah, and aren’t yez ashamed yerselves to be baten by the little boys.” We certainly were not, all things considered.''

In 1886, Pemberton’s last year on the Cam, his crew held their place on the river but lost their heads at the bump supper (“which we persisted in holding at Caius whether we were among the bumpers or the bumped”):

''In the May term nobody did any work and all the rowing men were exceedingly intoxicated after the bump supper. In my last year, our own First boat merely kept its place and there was little excuse for a riot. But Leverton Harris’s rich papa asked the Eight to dinner at the Bull, and by each man’s plate he caused a magnum of champagne to be set. The effect was a little unfortunate, as we had in the College at that time an obstinate and mistaken fellow who had refused to stand up in chapel when God Save the Queen had been sung upon an occasion of rejoicing. As one man the Eight rose after dinner and made a bee line for the offender’s rooms. . . collecting other Eights as they went and singing the National Anthem with vigour. Fortunately for the rebel, he had been warned that something of the kind might happen and his oak was both barred and bolted. So the mob could merely stand upon his staircase, howling and singing in stentorian tones and wholly defying the poor little Dean, who begged them to be good.''

''Far from being good, they did, I fear, but deride that admirable Doctor of Divinity. In my mind’s eye, there is a picture of the stroke of a lower boat, standing on the landing above and endeavouring to drop soda-water bottles on the head of the learned ecclesiastic below. And every time he let the bottle go he cried: “God save the b____y Dean”; a prayer of doubtful meaning, all the circumstances being considered.''

When Vanity Fair featured Pemberton in 1897, he was ten years into a career of journalism and light literature. He edited Cassell's Magazine until 1908, publishing about a novel a year on the side. He then turned to farcical comedy that was then in demand and became well-known in theatre and knighted in 1928. “At the Garrick he always had people around him, for he was well liked and welcome at any table,” wrote a friend to the Times. “He was full of reminiscences and had a tremendous memory for faces, having something interesting to say about almost everybody.”

Punts Amuck
When the Henley Stewards revised the course in 1886 they installed piles to mark it, but nothing to keep the growing armada of spectators at bay, who grew so thick in the days before motorcars that one could practically walk shore to shore on one pleasure boat to another. “The press of craft led to many cheerful scenes,” Pemberton wrote in his autobiography, “ladies even deigning to hit other ladies with paddles and boathooks and men to personal combat of a violent kind.” From time to time this melée left the official oarsmen with no room to row, despite the efforts of watermen employed to keep the course clear, as happened to Guy Nickalls in the 1887 Diamonds:

''In the final I met J.C. Gardner. This was the first Jubilee year, and the Royal Party sat in launches on the Berkshire side of the river about a hundred yards below the winning-post. When I was about one and a half lengths down on Gardner the crowd of boats swarming round the royal launches left room only for the man on the Bucks shore to get through. I was allowed to crash into the Royal Party and smashed my scull and boat and left Gardner to finish alone. The Princess of Wales, through Mrs. W.H. Smith (afterwards Lady Hambleden), sent me a kind, sympathetic note of condolence and trusted I was not hurt, but the Henley Committee never gave me a chance to re-scull the race.''

As the problem of punts grew with the popularity of the regatta, it became a regular subject of Woodgate’s annual Henley commentary for Vanity Fair in the 1890s. “There were, if possible, more small craft than ever, and worse handled than ever, running amuck and quite devoid of watermanship. . . . It is intolerable that any cripple of a Cockney should be let loose for the day to do more damage that he is worth by incompetency to handle a common tub.” (1892) “There will always be congestion on the course and difficulties in clearing so long as the Conservancy are supine in enforcing their veto against pleasure boats mooring to piles in the course. . . . . [Most] are largely made up of bounders and counter-jumpers on the spree. These creatures coolly tie up and loll in their boats, blocking the passage and enjoying the nuisance which their lubberly conduct produces.” (1896) But his finest, longest salvo was July 18, 1895:

''The incompetence, and in many instances truculence, of non-rowing club cripples in the crowds on the reach becomes more marked each year. It would not be a bad idea for the Thames Conservancy to place some limit upon the presence of these adventurers: for example, in the case of persons not members of some recognised Club that competes, regularly or periodically, at Henley, to require a fee for a “license” to row or paddle on the reach during Regatta hours. It would thin the mob, and have a tendency to man boats with competent hands. “Keel to the current” is a maxim with all habitués when moving or halting; but duffers think nothing of sprawling broadside to the stream, blocking passage, and thus tangling a dozen or more passers-by in one knot of confusion. Then, again, many of these loafers are devoid of good taste, as well as of watermanship. Thus a brace of pariahs deliberately moored their punt, with ryepecked poles, in the middle of the Berks side-channel, just below the point -- (forming an “island” obstacle); and then lay down and amused themselves with watching the confusion which their obstruction occasioned. Unfortunately, there was no specific by-law to meet and punish this act of rowdyism this year. No one anticipated such gross misconduct; but next year, no doubt, Mr. Gough, the energetic Secretary of the Conservancy, will propound a rule and penalty to check such outrage.''

''One of the freaks of the normal Cockney on the spree at Henley is to lie in the bow of a progressing boat armed with a boat-hook, and to prod off with the spike all approaching craft, enjoying the fun of spearing timbers and ripping up carvels. There were at least half-a-dozen such mischief-makers on the course this year.''

''“Punt paddling” should be stopped during Regatta hours. A laden punt, thus propelled, cannot be “held” up sharply -- especially by the class of cripples who indulge in the trick -- when collision is imminent (unlike a row boat); it runs on like a battering-ram, and its iron-shod shelving prow sweeps destructively over gunwales and rowlocks of legitimate craft. It is a form of navigation painfully on the increase, because it commends itself to the unskilfulness of the tyro, and can be learned in minutes, while it takes weeks to learn to punt and months to row decently.''

The Stewards cleared the course in 1899 by adding floating booms between the piles.

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Pemberton M


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The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Searle HE

Estoppel

“H. Searle/ Professional Champion Sculler of the World” (Spy), September 7, 1889
''When Beach, who was perhaps the finest sculler ever seen, had beaten Hanlan often enough to satisfy his ambition, he retired, and the Professional Sculling Championship of the World was claimed by Kemp, who in his turn twice defeated the once unbeaten Hanlan. Then there arose a new sculler, a young Australian named Searle, and he having beaten Kemp, the World gained yet another Champion, whose Championship, together with some money, is staked upon the race which he will row with a Canadian named O’Connor on Monday.''

''Searle has a fine chest, but he sculls with a round back. His form is not good, but his pace is remarkable. He is a very decent young fellow of three-and-twenty years.'' English professional rowing grew out of wager matches sponsored by amateur gentlemen in the 1830s. Though professionals both rowed and sculled, the greater prize money, and therefore fame, went to individual scullers whose past performance and present form were easier to handicap for gambling. The necessary mix of money, talent, and interest was particularly strong in London, where the success of ad hoc wager matches and Doggett’s Coat and Badge led to the creation of a Championship of England sculling race in 1831, a year after the Wingfield Sculls were founded there for amateurs. For many years only Londoners contested the Championship, its winners being taken into the service of the Royal Barge, but eventually it attracted local champions from Australia and North America and was renamed the Championship of the World. Indeed, Australians held the title for twenty-two of the thirty-one years ending in 1907, starting with Edward Trickett in 1876. Professional sculling peaked in England in the 1870s, while the young Thomas Eakins was painting the local champions of his native Philadelphia, but was still popular in 1889 when Vanity Fair featured Henry Ernest Searle (1866-89).

As a professional and Australian, Searle stands apart from the other Vanity Fair rowers, to a man all Oxbridge or London amateurs. Growing up on Esk Island in the Clarence River in New South Wales, the young Searle learned to row of necessity. In addition to semiannual three-day journeys with his father to Grafton for supplies, Searle rowed seven miles a day to take himself, his brother, and sister to school -- early training a biographer later celebrated in verse:

 * When in boyhood calm and shy
 * To the village schoolhouse lowly
 * Passed each morning wet or dry.

 * Not as we have passed that journey,
 * Lagging every foot the way,
 * But with feathered oar advancing
 * Back and forward twice a day.

“[N]o doubt that laid the foundation for his pre-eminent position in the rowing world,” countryman Steve Fairbairn wrote to illustrate his axiom “Mileage makes champions.” While Muttlebury and Nickalls were racing for Eton in 1884-85, Searle, who was a few months younger than “Muttle” and a few older than Guy, was taking on all comers on the Clarence.

By 1888, the time had come to try Sydney, which offered the best money, competition, and coaching in the land. Backed by John and Thomas Spencer, Sydney brothers who a decade earlier had backed Ned Trickett, Searle began his Parramatta campaign in a match against one Julius Woolf:

''Woolf had been defeated by Stanbury a fortnight earlier, so he was not much in favour with the betting public, and it looked as if Searle’s backers would have to be content with the bare prize-money. John Spencer refrained from betting at all before the start of the race, and instructed Searle to hang back and “feel” Woolf in the early stages, and, as soon as he was sure of his man, to shake his head from side to side, but not to go in front until he got a sign from Spencer, who was in a boat following the race.''

''The race had barely started when Searle’s head was seen to wobble violently. This caused loud laughter among those who had never seen Searle race before. They chaffed Spencer so unmercifully that he assumed a deliberately anxious look. Meanwhile, his commissioners were snapping up every bet offered, with Woolf still leading and going great guns. Suddenly Spencer waved a red handkerchief and in a hundred yards Searle was a length ahead, and the issue beyond doubt.''

In October the same year, Searle beat Peter Kemp, the then-reigning world champion, who the preceding month had defended the title against a former holder, the renowned Edward Hanlan of Canada. Searle’s victory set him up to visit England in 1889 to face off against William O’Connor of Toronto, the North American champion, for the unprecedented purse of £1000.

Nickalls, en route to his third victory in the amateur Wingfield Sculls, met and trained with Searle that summer. “We had many a long scull together on the tideway,” Nickalls recalled. “An extremely nice man he was, too. Powerful and rather on the heavy side, as he would be at that period of his practice, for it was two months before his race. I. . . admired his sculling immensely, quite a different thing from the showing made by our other English professionals at that date.” The chasm between amateur and professional perhaps fostered friendlier relations than they might have had, had there been any prospect of their competing in the same race.

Searle beat O’Connor handily but died less than three months later, having contracted typhoid fever on the ship returning to Melbourne. “It was suspected that the heavy wagering on the race -- about £80,000 is said to have changed hands -- caused him to become the victim of foul play.” When his remains arrived in Sydney the whole city went into mourning, the crowd estimated at between one and two hundred thousand. The local Sunday Times, in six long and dense columns describing the scene, declared that when “the white-winged spirit of the Champion floated upward towards the golden gates of the Jasper City,” the community felt that “a national loss had been sustained and that a calamity had overtaken our country.” A column in Searle’s memory erected in 1891 stands at the finish of the Parramatta course.

Professional Sculling
English professional sculling began to ebb in the 1870s, due partly to the greater prize money available in Australia and North America, but largely to its own “bad odor,” as decried in Vanity Fair (Feb. 18, 1888):

''Though Monday last was an unpleasant day for the river, a huge crowd turned out to see the great Championship Professional Sculling race between Wallace Ross and Bubear. Thousands, in their simplicity, expected to see a fine race. The Englishman was said to be “fitter” than ever he had been before, and long odds were laid on him for the event, until just before the start, when the betting veered around to 5 to 4 on Ross. For myself, I hoped against hope to see a race, but my prophetic soul told me I should not. My prophetic soul was, as usual, right. I saw a fiasco, as people who go nowadays to see races of this kind so often do.''

''Ross rowed right away from Bubear. He started at forty to the minute. When he had got a lead, he dropped into a paddle of twenty-six. Bubear may have tried; but, if so, his trying is not worth much. He was never in it after the first few yards, and Ross paddled home on a good tide, in shockingly bad time, as easy a winner as one could wish to see in any duffer’s race.''

''The disappointed public were very angry, and said many nasty things. Journalists are, for particular reasons, less free-spoken; but though they may not say much, they think a good deal. English professional sculling received a great blow on Monday last, from which it will not easily recover. It has been in bad odour from some time past; and it will now be hard to re-excite interest in what is almost a ruined branch of sport; and I for one am not sorry for it. I am sick of professional sculling; and it is certain that no one will be one whit the worse for its extinction, if it is to continue in its present circumstances.''

Just over a year later, with the prospect of Searle and O’Connor facing off in a “square” match, Vanity Fair (Sept. 7, 1889) took hope for professional sculling:

''Searle and O’Connor are to race over the tideway course on Monday, and all the sporting world will go out to see them. The match is a remarkable one, if only by reason of the wonderful records that the competitors bring to these shores with them, Searle being the admitted successor to the once great Beach, and O’Connor having beaten every man of note in America. It is also remarkable for its apparent genuineness. Rightly or wrongly, every waterman and every follower of aquatics believes that the match will be “square,” and this is in itself enough to account for the large share of public interest that has centred upon the meeting. To speak of the respective chances of the scullers is a little difficult, as we know so little of them when actually racing; and many a man who practises well has not the head or the heart to carry him through a big race. In style -- and especially for a short distance -- O’Connor has the advantage; being a most pretty workman, save for the bad fault of letting his shoulders stand out at the finish. The present champion, Searle, has a long, dragging stroke, holding his slide well with his legs, and maintaining the power well past the rowlock -- a style which is most telling over a long course. Besides, he is a better built, and, I should say, a stronger, man than his opponent. While, then, it must not be forgotten that O’Connor is a tremendous spurter, and is possessed of some amount of staying power, I am inclined to think that Searle will win, if the water be at all rough. But it should be a close and exciting race.''

Professional sculling did continue into the twentieth century but had almost disappeared by the 1914-18 war.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Searle HE


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Talk:LaTeX/Theorems

I can't get the \newtheorem*{..}{...} to work unless I use the amsthm package (that is, using the "*" unnumbered style). This seems to be supported by what I found here: http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/teaching_staff/Smith/LaTeX/resources/amsthdoc.pdf

So, maybe move this to the amsthm section. I don't think it requires the amsthm package, but it does require some package.

 * This looks to be the case, and an anonymous IP has edited the document for you. (Thanks!) +mt  06:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

theorem package
I removed the references to the theorem package, as everything specified here can be done by the amsthm package. -3mta3 (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Results comparison
This page needs some comparison of results of using plain TeX vs amsthm package. Images of output would be very nice.

Like this: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71196/difference-between-begintheorem-endtheorem-and-theorem

--Lgallindo (discuss • contribs) 19:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

 * As far as i can see, there is absolutly no mention of plain TeX on the current site about theorems. Which is good, as the book is about LaTeX, not TeX. Adding what is described on TeX.SX will lead to confusion. Never misuse an environment as a comment and vice versa, a command as an environment. I advise not to add anything of that kind.--Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 07:27, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Using \lemma instead of \begin{lemma} \end{lemma}
After declaring \newtheorem{lemma}{Lemma}, \lemma This is a lemma seems to also work fine, and the compiler doesn't complain. However this seems to mess up something in the background. I wrapped it inside enumerate, and the numbering for the next item does not show up. Matt Zjack (discuss • contribs) 19:36, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

 * Using  is not the correct syntax. The compiler might not complain (this is a feature) but it still not proper. --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 06:18, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:LaTeX/Theorems


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Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e5/2. Nf3/2...d6/3. d4/3...exd4/4. Nxd4

= Philidor Defence: Exchange Variation 4. Nxd4 =

Overview
In the Exchange Variation of the Philidor Defense, Black opts to relieve the central tension immediately with 3...exd4. This move captures White's d4 pawn with Black's e5 pawn. In response, White has the option to recapture the pawn on d4. The most logical recapture is with the knight, 4. Nxd4, positioning the knight centrally.

After White recaptures with the knight, Black has a popular move, 4...Nf6, which targets White's e4 pawn. To defend this pawn, White often develops another piece, the queen's knight, to c3 with 5. Nc3.

An interesting alternative for Black after 4. Nxd4 is the move 4...c5. This puts immediate pressure on the centralized white knight. White would need to decide how to respond, either by relocating the attacked knight or creating a counter-threat elsewhere on the board.

The Exchange Variation with Nxd4 in the Philidor Defense leads to rich positional play. Black relieves central tension early on, but the resulting positions offer ample opportunities for both sides to create imbalances and fight for an advantage.

Theory table
.

'''1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4'''


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MediaWiki:Gadget-rightsfilter

Logs filter: Allows regex-based filtering of Special:Log (especially Special:Log/rights) and Special:Contributions.

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User:Kesne~enwikibooks

Kesne (sometimes called Keen) is the founder of Keen Studios and the co-founder of Andy's Game Unit 1. He is a game programmer, computer programmer, white hat, 3D modelist, graphic designer and web designer. He writes small books that are on Wikibooks about his various projects. He also writes them to help developing programmers.

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Talk:IB Chemistry/Stoichiometry

Some sections in this guide do not follow the IB syllabus, more attention should be given to that.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 121.45.56.120 (talk • contribs) 08:25, 12 January 2008.

 * Well, there are two syllabuses currently - one for last exams this year, one for first exams in 2009. I added notes for the new syllabus but left those for the old one. Which sections do you mean?

 * Ewen (talk) 08:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The currenty syllabus is for exams after May 2016 (inclusive). You can see it at www.ibchem.com/htm/ibsyllabus.htm

title: Talk:IB Chemistry/Stoichiometry


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User:Mr diaconescu

Mihai Radu Diaconescu MD, Ph D     Professor of surgery, head IVth Surgical Clinic, University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Gr T Popa", Iasi Romania born 29 august 1939 in Iasi, Romania adress Bd Carol I, no 25 B, Iasi 6600, Romania, phone : +40232212532 e mail mr_diaconescu@yahoo.com

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The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Muttlebury SD

“One of the Presidents” (Spy), March 22, 1890
''Born three-and-twenty years ago he became a “new boy” at Eton in the Easter Term of 1880; where, although he only took “Lower Middle,” he determined to make himself conspicuous. So, being a big boy for his age, he donned “tails” and “shiny buttons,” and presently showed much promise as a “wet bob”; which he has since redeemed. For, having successively won the Lower Boys Sculls and Pairs, he proceeded to develop into a rowing machine; and in that capacity he has since worked with fair regularity, breaking down much less often than the machinery of any of Her Majesty’s ships has been known to break down in any equal space of time. He won the School Sculls at his second attempt, and he helped to win the Ladies’ Plate in 1885; after which he was reasonably welcomed to Cambridge, where rowing men were smarting under pretty frequent defeat on the tideway; and where he is now worshipped for four successive victories which he has helped achieve over Oxford. He has won the Cambridge Pairs thrice, the Fours and the Sculls once, and last year he rowed in the Head Boat; while at Henley he has won the Goblets thrice and the Visitors’ once. He still lives in hope of winning the “Grand,” as well as a fifth victory over the Isis men. Yet he is not so good an oar as he was two years ago.''

''Like most machines he is adapted for one purpose only, and consequently he is not a brilliant scholar; yet he has a head which, it is currently reported, can stand more than that of any other man. He is a fine swimmer, who has scored nearly as many pots in the water as he has on it; and he has upon occasion run at a good rate and played football with fitting violence. He always likes to get a good start in a race, and rows better when he does so; yet he has never started before the word “Go” has been uttered. He takes delight in tearing either side off a boat, for he can row on stroke or bow side. He is a brilliant conversationalist, for in himself he has a never failing subject of conversation in which he is well posted; and he is the strongest man on earth (in a boat) as well as the most ugly.''

''He knows more of life in London than most men of double his age know, and he weighs fifteen stone when untrained. He can tell stories, and he is supposed to be the most successful pot-hunter in England.''

He personifies the triumph of matter over mind.

“[U]ndoubtedly the greatest oar ever produced by Cambridge” and the first Cantab to win the Boat Race four times, Stanley Duff Muttlebury (1866-1933) appeared in Vanity Fair at the end of his third year as C.U.B.C. President and at the apex of his career, having captained Leander in 1889. (He was the only VANITY FAIR rower to be shown in a boat -- with fixed pins, as swivels had not yet been accepted -- which he facilitated by letting Leslie Ward watch him practice rowing on the floor of his college room.) Muttlebury’s success came in part, as R.C. Lehmann wrote, from sheer strength: “His blade sweeps through the water, as he swings his 13.10 / And pulls it all, and more than all, that brawny king of men.” But success also came from effective use of a long slide, a refinement Muttlebury developed in the mid-1880s at Trinity College while Reginald McKenna was doing the same next door at Trinity Hall, both with the help of Steve Fairbairn. In the resulting debate between “orthodoxy” and “Fairbairnism,” which flared again fifty years later in The Times, R.P.P. Rowe, the younger brother of Vanity Fair ’s G.D. Rowe, pointed to “Muttle” as the exemplar of both styles:

''Muttlebury had a natural aptitude which amounted to genius for rowing, and, as he was not only massively large and full of courage but herculean in muscular strength, it was inevitable that he should be an outstanding exponent of oarsmanship. Added to this, he came to his prime when rowing was in a transitional stage, when the old methods of the straight back and the body catch, suited to the fixed seat and the short slide, had necessarily to be superseded by methods required by the long slide. I consider that long-slide rowing sprang suddenly to perfection in Muttlebury, that on him this new (or partially new) art was built, and that if he could be rowing at his best today there would be an end of any conflict of styles. At any rate, every one would agree “this is how to row, if one can somehow learn it”; the only question left would be how best to learn it. Personally I claim his rowing to have been orthodoxy at its best; I have never in the last 40 years thought of orthodoxy in any other sense.''

To Muttlebury’s strength and style might be added his sang froid, which one of his Third Trinity teammates recalled from the 1888 University Fours:

''In the University Fours in November, 1888, Third Trinity was drawn with Emmanuel. Both crews had done fast times in practice, and in the race they were level at Ditton. Here, rounding the corner, the Third Trinity boat gave a lurch, and Muttlebury, who rowed three and steered, found to his consternation that his sliding seat was jammed and was absolutely immovable. Quick as thought he tucked the loom of his oar under his left arm, turned half round, and after two attempts wrenched the seat off the slides and threw it overboard. The other three oars, not knowing exactly what was wrong, continued to paddle on briskly. “Muttle,” now seated low down on the slideway, started to row again, but at the second stroke, owing to the strain caused when he pulled out the seat, the steering lacing gave way at his foot. Calling out “Paddle on, you chaps,” he calmly stopped rowing, leant forward, and carefully secured the steering lace. Then, after dipping his right hand in the water overside, he cried out, “Now come on,” and, to the encouraging sound of great cheering from the banks, started to pick up the stroke, Bevan, who rowed stroke, having to keep time as best he could by watching three’s blade out of the corner of his eye.''

''Emmanuel, who were in second station, had been coming up fast, and were now only about 50 yards off. By common consent the race was practically over. Not so to “Muttle.” It was said that the water washed out of the Cam by “Muttle’s” blade rolled in huge waves to the tow path. At the Railway Bridge the crews were level again, but it seemed to most people that Third could not continue with their heavy 13st. 10lb. man bumping about on the metal slide-way and the three light men trying to keep time with him at over 40. However, “Muttle” called out for a “thick ‘un,” and on they went. From the Railway Bridge he put in a number of these “thick ‘uns” of his, until Third, rowing 44, and steered a perfect course by “Muttle,” got their gun and won the race by a second amid great excitement. There was a vast to-do among the timekeepers in comparing watches when it was discovered that the time was 10min. 26sec. -- 21sec. faster than the previous year’s record for the course.''

In 1890 Oxford won the first of its nine successive Boat Races and Muttlebury’s and Cambridge’s reign ended. He finished at university that year and went to London where he became a stockbroker and joined the Thames R.C., winning the Stewards’ in 1894 but never the Grand. For many years he helped coach Cambridge and was a steward of the Henley Regatta.

The 1890 Boat Race, Part I: “A Poorer Lot than Usual”
In the correspondence between the University Boat Club Presidents to set the details for the 1890 race, the date became a sticking point, flashing over when Guy Nickalls wrote that Cambridge wanted to get the best of everything because they were “a poorer lot than usual.” Less than tactful stuff from a club that had lost four in a row. To celebrate this “Inter-University Incident,” Rudy Lehmann, who at various times coached both Nickalls and Muttlebury, penned thirty-two stanzas for Granta, the year-old Cambridge magazine that Lehmann edited and co-founded. (Muttle wrote its initial “Rowing Notes.”) First, for the February 1 issue, “The Quarrel: ‘A Poorer Lot than Usual’”:

 * Strew your heads with dust and ashes, O ye
 *  sons of sedgy Cam;
 * Let your speech be meek and humble as the
 * baa of bleating lamb;
 * Let your bloods go robed in sackcloth and be
 * careless of their boots,--
 * You’re “a poorer lot than usual, – rather
 * lower than the brutes.

 * Fiery Nickalls wrote the latter, -- fiery
 * Nickalls, fine and large,--
 * And his frenzied eye flashed fury as he sat
 * within his barge.
 * Long enough have we submitted; now the time
 * has come to strike;
 * Shall “a poorer lot than usual” settle all
 * things as they like?

 * “I, the winner of the Wingfields, of the
 * Diamonds winner too,
 * Who at stroke, or six, or seven am the
 *  mainstay of the crew;
 * I, whom friends call Guy or Luney,” -- it was
 * thus the chieftain spoke, --
 * “Of ‘a poorer lot than usual’ will not tamely
 * bear the yoke.

 * “Nay, my brothers of the Isis, let us write to
 *  them and say
 * They shall trample us no longer in the old
 * familiar way;
 * And the banner of our Boat Club, as it flutters
 * in its pride,
 * By ‘a poorer lot than usual’ shall no longer be
 *  defied.”

 * So he wrote it, and he signed it in the
 *  Presidential chair,
 * And he folded and addressed it, and he posted
 * it with care;
 * And the heedless postman bore it, little recking
 * of the frown
 * Of “a poorer lot than usual” who reside in
 *  Cambridge town.

 * And they [the Cambridge boat club captains]
 * sat in solemn conclave, there within the
 *  panelled hall,
 * Where the golden names of oarsmen gleam
 *  and glitter on the wall;
 * Mighty Muttle read the letter, lord and master
 * of the crew,
 * In “a poorer lot than usual” of socks and
 * shorts and shoes.

 * Then they looked at one another as they heard
 * it with dismay,
 * And one said, “This is awful,” and another,
 * “Let us pray”;
 * Till at last one rose and murmured, and his
 * fingers, as he rose,
 * Were -- “a poorer lot than usual” – extended
 * from his nose.

 * “Thus,” he said, “I answer Nickalls of the
 * boast so loud and big;
 * Let him mount, and, if he likes it, ride to
 * Putney on a pig.
 * Let him go to Bath or blazes, go to Jericho and
 * back,
 * Or -- “a poorer lot than usual” -- place his
 * head within a sack.

 * “But when next he writes to Cambridge let him
 * try another plan;
 * Manners cost no more than twopence, and ‘tis
 * manners makyth man.
 * And, O Muttle! if you meet him, tell him
 * plainly face to face
 * That ‘a poorer lot than usual’ mean to beat
 * him in the race.”

Then, for the February 15 issue,”The Reconciliation: Oxford in Cambridge,” as Nickalls and R.P.P. Rowe had come to Cambridge to make peace, cemented at a banquet in their honor:

 * Oh! sadly flows the Isis, full sadly go the
 * crews,
 * And the Blue-aspiring oarsmen all have
 * yielded to the blues,
 * Through hall and quad and college sweeps the
 * universal moan,--
 * “Give Guy and Reggie back to us; we cannot
 * row alone.”

 * To Iffley drift the “toggers,” as slow as any
 * hearse;
 * For while the men forget their form the coach
 * forgets to curse;
 * And bow, who screws most painfully, forgets to
 * murmur “Blank,”
 * As the cox forgets his rudder-strings and runs
 * into the bank.

 * But Guy has hastened Camward; he leaves
 * them to their sighs,
 * And Reggie Rowe goes with him, curly Reggie
 * of the eyes--
 * Reggie the slim and supple, the pride of all the
 * Eight,
 * Who never left his bed too soon, and never yet
 * rowed late.

 * See how our Muttle greets them; his childlike
 * smile is bland,
 * That heathen Cantab, Muttle, -- as he shakes
 * them by the hand:
 * “Now, welcome both to Cambridge; first lunch
 * and then away
 * To watch ‘the poorer-’ Hem! I mean the
 * crew at work to-day.”

 * Muttle at six is “stylish,” so at least the Field
 * reports;
 * No man has ever worn, I trow, so short a pair
 * of shorts.
 * His blade sweeps through the water, as he
 * swings his 13.10,
 * And pulls it all, and more than all, that brawny
 * king of men.

 * And, now the work is over, the rival chieftains
 * sit
 * And talk of friendly nothings in their
 * armchairs at the Pitt;
 * And yet methought I marked a shade of
 * sadness on the face
 * Of Nickalls, as he thought upon the coming
 * Putney race.

 * But oh! that merry evening -- the clash of
 * knives and forks,
 * The sparkle of the wineglass, and the popping
 * of the corks;
 * And the walls and rafters echoed and re-
 * echoed to our cry,
 * As we drained our brimming bumpers to
 * Reggie and to Guy.

 * So here’s a health to Oxford men; there came
 * a storm of late,
 * But our sturdy friendship weathered it, nor
 * foundered on a date;
 * And, when the furious race is past, again we’ll
 * meet and dine,
 * And drink a cup of kindness yet for days of
 * auld lang syne.

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Muttlebury SD


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/1890 - 1898 Oxford’s Decade

1890 - 1898: Oxford’s Decade
In 1890 Oxford ended the Cambridge four-year run in the Boat Race and went on to win the next eight in a row. Their success was due in no small part to having a disproportionate share of Etonians, who at school under the Oxford Etonian coach R.S. de Havilland won the Ladies’ Challenge Plate seven years straight from 1893 to 1899. By then Leander Club had emerged from fifty years of relative obscurity to become the most successful of the gentlemen amateur clubs, largely by virtue of the 1893 “University Qualification Rule.” By limiting undergraduate membership to the Oxbridge cream, it gave the club sufficient cachet more or less to ensure that those oarsmen would row for Leander when not for their own colleges. In 1897, under secretary G.D. Rowe, Leander built a boathouse at Henley by the finish of the course, reflecting the club’s new fortunes. The course had been altered in 1886, keeping the original length of about one mile 550 yards but shifting the start downstream to avoid the bend round Poplar Point and thereby, it was hoped, end the advantage the Berkshire station held over Buckinghamshire. The alterations also entailed marking the outside boundaries with piles and narrowing the course so that it could no longer hold three crews abreast but only two, which led to extending the regatta from two days to three. (The modern course, with the same distance and finish, was laid out in 1924 and made rail straight by moving the start from the Bucks to the Berks side of the Island.)

On the technology front, in contrast to previous years there were no major advances to disrupt order; some crews toyed with oarlocks on swivel pins, and everyone got tubular iron outriggers to replace the solid kind -- an invention borrowed from the new bicycle craze -- but that was about it. In 1895 the Boat Race became the first major British sporting event to be filmed. From the vantage of Vanity Fair, which started covering gentlemen’s sports in earnest after Bowles sold out in 1889 and its new owner brought W.B. Woodgate back on board to cover the Boat Race and Henley Regatta, Oxford, Eton, and Leander were on top and, on the whole, all was right with the world.

There were, however, two lurking problems, one foreign, one domestic. With the growth of rowing abroad came increased foreign interest in Henley Regatta. Early entries such as the Shoe-wae-cae-mettes from Michigan for the 1878 Stewards’ were viewed almost as circus sideshows: curious in costume, speech, and rowing style, but not a serious competitive threat. However, as the number and average quality of foreign entries rose the attitude gradually changed, with the Henley stewards applying the same “amateur” standard for entries from abroad as for home crews, with the same exclusionary effect. At the same time, the stewards and the rest of the gentlemen amateur rowing establishment kept their distance from foreign efforts to organize the sport, declining to affiliate with Le Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron, the international governing body formed in 1892, and to participate in the European Championships that began the next year, and entirely avoided Olympic rowing until having to host it at Henley in 1908. “England, which regarded bodily strength and vigor the exclusive property of her children, was not enthusiastic,” recalled Baron Pierre de Coubertin, about his experiences in the early 1890s organizing the first modern Olympic games. British indifference left the French with the upper hand, so that while the Henley starting command is “Are you ready? Go!”, in the FISA world it was for years “Êtes-vous prêts? Partez!”; and because Henley’s one mile 550 yards did not convert into an attractive number in Napoleon’s metric system, FISA lopped off 123 yards to set 2000 meters as the new international standard. To this day the Henley Regatta remains the only event on the international calendar outside FISA control. “It is no spirit of criticism,” wrote Gully Nickalls of his uncle, H.G. Gold, who chaired the ARA from 1948 to 1952, “that I record that, in spite of all the forward-looking and imaginative activities in which he engaged on behalf of rowing he, like the great majority of his contemporaries, had no very great love for its international aspects.”

If ignoring foreigners was relatively easy, the domestic front presented gentlemen amateurs with a more complex question, namely, redefining their own identity. The old distinction drawn against “professional watermen” no longer worked, given the dwindling number of professionals remotely interested in racing without a purse, the mass influx of the new middle class with ample leisure who were flocking to the river, and the corresponding erosion under Dilke-sponsored legislation of such barriers as working hours and education levels that formerly kept amateur rowing socially exclusive. In the late nineteenth century the debate continued to be framed largely as amateur vs. professional, but the results – chiefly the founding of the Amateur Rowing Association and the promulgation of its restrictive “amateur” definition – became increasingly detached from the publicly-stated rationales that underlay them.

The 1882 founding of the ARA came just before or after similar mid-Victorian organizing efforts in other sports: tennis (Wimbledon 1877, Lawn Tennis Association 1888), cycling (Bicyclist’s Union 1878), athletics (Amateur Athletic Association 1880), boxing (Amateur Boxing Association 1881), association football (Football League 1888), and gymnastics (Amateur Gymnastics Association 1888). Promptly after its founding the ARA defined “amateur” to bar, among others, anyone employed “in manual labour for money or wages,” a restriction that originated in the Henley Regatta rules of 1879. The ARA imposed the definition on its member clubs and all regattas organized under its rules, thereby exporting the views of its London and Oxbridge governing members to the rest of the country. Publicly, the new definition served to prevent cheating, preserve the “spirit” of the sport, and avoid the unfair advantage that would accrue to watermen and other non-amateurs due to their supposed extra training and strength. In truth, the means hardly served the ends and had other, rarely spoken rationales. As noted earlier, the public schools imbued their cadets with some notion of the immutability of rank, even though many of them came from socially-ambitious, newly-rich families. The Warden of Radley College, Woodgate’s alma mater, said: “A gentleman both knows and is thankful that God, instead of making all men equal has made them all most unequal. Heredity, rank, nobility of blood is the very first condition and essence of all Christian privileges and woe to the man who will honour no one except for his own merit and his own deeds.” In addition, would-be gentlemen objected, at least in theory, to a dedication to sport to the exclusion of other affairs. “To play billiards is the amusement of a gentleman,” wrote Anthony Trollope in 1868; “to play billiards pre-eminently well is the life’s work of a man who in learning to do so can hardly have continued to be a gentleman in the best sense of the word.” As the athletics correspondent of the Saturday Review noted in 1867, “the facts of his being civil and never having competed for money are not sufficient to make a man a gentleman as well as an amateur.”

A byproduct of the ARA’s restrictive definition of “amateur” was the creation in 1890 of the National Amateur Rowing Association, which excluded only those who raced for money. Anyone otherwise employed “in manual labor for money or wages” was welcome. For a time some thought the NARA would serve as a political counterweight, forcing the ARA to moderate its definition and return to the center with a less exclusionary approach. However, the first meeting between the two bodies went poorly and resulted in a “widening of the breach rather than a widening of the amateur definition.” Indeed, with the NARA now available to house any club not able or willing to meet the ARA’s standards, the ARA felt free to add a further restriction in 1894 to bar anyone ever employed “in our about boats.”   The restriction remained in place until 1956, with its repeal facilitating the merger that year of the two associations. The ARA remains the U.K. governing body for rowing.


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Nickalls G

“Wingfield Sculls” (Spy), July 20, 1889
'''Only a few years ago there was at Eton a young wet-bob whose vigorous energy led him to dare so much, and to display such recklessness of consequence in daring, that he came to be known amongst his fellows as “Luni.”  But however well earned the style may have been, he has ever since persistently shown that he has method in what he does. While still at Eton, he played football with success, and when not engaged in athletically breaking his bones or risking his neck, he feathered an oar with skill enough to attract the notice of the galley slave-drivers of the time, who quickly placed him upon a thwart in the Eton Eight, in which he greatly helped seven other boys to carry off the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley. After this, his success as a boat propeller was assured. He went to Magdalen College, Oxford, and was found ready to row down all comers. He took a seat in the Oxford Eight as of right, and has kept it for three years. He rowed once with Lord Ampthill, and again with a son of the Leader of the House of Commons in the University Pairs; and he has rowed in various Eights and Pairs at Henley with a great deal more success than most men have any right to expect.''

''As a Sculler, Mr. Nickalls is even more famous. When he had once won the Oxford Sculls he feared to contest them again because all other possible competitors feared to scull against him. He rowed with such vigour against Gardner at Henley that he broke a scull and was beaten -- which he could well afford to be for once. He holds the records over the Amateur Championship course; and he has now thrice won the Wingfield Sculls, no one having the stomach to contest them with him on the last occasion. He always finishes a hard race as strongly as he begins it, and it is now confidently asserted that we have never yet seen his like in a skiff.''

''In spite of his youth -- he is but twenty-two years old -- and of his great achievements, Mr. Nickalls is not puffed up but is the owner of a very genial and hearty manner, which upon occasion becomes so boisterous as to show justification for the schoolboy estimate of his ways as summed up at Eton. He has much capacity for exercise, and his excessive biceps is only surpassed in quantity by the size of his forearm. His favourite sport is hunting, but he can catch fish and shoot birds. He is also good at presiding over others, for while still President of the O.U.B.C., he presides over the Eton Club and over the Junior Common Room of his College, and he will presently be President of Vincent’s. He is the best of friends, a man with whom, for other reasons, no one would care to quarrel. But he is not fond of rowing, and is likely soon to retire upon his laurels.''

“But he is not fond of rowing, and is likely soon to retire upon his laurels.” Unless tongue in cheek, this was Vanity Fair ’s single worst rowing prediction, for Guy Nickalls (1866-1935) went on to accumulate a record to which none “can compare even remotely,” judged the Times obituarist. It is thus fitting that he was the first rower to be featured as such in Vanity Fair, all predecessors having appeared in some other capacity (and Rev. E.J.H. Smith having been a coaching fluke).

Tom Nickalls, a founding member of the London Rowing Club, did not want his sons to become oarsmen, telling Guy, “Cricket, my boy, will take you round the world, and rowing, up and down the Thames. I used to row for London, and I always wished I could play cricket.” But Guy became a “wet bob” almost immediately on arrival at Eton in 1880 and kept rowing for the next twenty-eight years, with a hiatus from 1898 to 1904 to attend to family and finances. In his autobiography, he demurred: “I do not wish for a moment to take any credit to myself. . . . Nature has endowed me with a fairly strong body, a constitution of iron, and a will power or stubbornness above the average. These I have tried my best not to abuse, and any man so built and constituted, given my opportunities, could no doubt have done the same.” Maybe so. But few could win three events at a Henley regatta; or enter and win in their forties (and train by dragging a horse-roller around the lawn); or shrug off a surgical divot in the leg to win the Grand and jump in a scratch pair for the Goblets:

''Somewhere about April [1892] I was breaking in some Arab polo ponies which my eldest brother had sent home from Cairo, and, in opening a gate, the one I was riding, a grey, suddenly plunged and swerved; consequence, a badly torn tailor’s muscle. It put me hors de combat for a day or two, and, as there were no outward and visible signs of injury, I continued riding every morning. At the end of April I could feel a hard lump as big as a goose’s egg deep on my inner left thigh. I went up to see Wharton Hood, who told me that I had a bad suffusion of blood, and that when it ripened, so to speak, it would come more to the surface, in about six weeks’ time, and that then I should have to have it opened up. . . .''

''The exercise at Oxford and the dancing at Commem., for which I had a big party, including my wife to be, brought my bad leg to a head. I had arranged to drive my party over to Henley with two of old Richard’s team, but before starting I went to see “Pego” Symonds, who vetted all the Varsity crews in those days. He laid me out, proceeded to hone a knife, and then, with a “Hold tight,” he made two enormous deep gashes in my thigh, bound my leg up, and told me not to take it off for twenty-four hours. When I did so, at Henley, I had a hole in my thigh that I could get my fist into. The local saw-bones, Baines, fixed me up with two tubes, and, as there was no chance of walking for three weeks, I took to a bath-chair, in which Robeson, the ninth man [for the Leander eight], was kind enough to trundle me about. I could row all right, but missed my usual running exercise badly. The only means by which I could persuade Robeson to come as ninth man was a promise that I would go in for the Goblets with him. The extra exercise certainly helped me to get fit, but we could never make a good pair.''

At Eton Nickalls won the Junior Sculling (1884), the School Pulling (1885-86), and School Sculling (1885). At Oxford he won the University Sculls (1887), the University Pairs (1888-90, with W.F.D. Smith once, then twice with Lord Ampthill), and the University Fours (1886 and 1889), went head of the river in 1888 with Magdalene, and rowed in five Boat Races (1887-91), winning twice and being O.U.B.C. President in 1890. He was Captain of Leander in 1892 and 1897. He won the Wingfield Sculls four times (1887-89 and 1891), and at Henley won the Grand four times (1891-92 and 1896-97), the Ladies’ once (1885, with Eton), the Stewards’ seven times (1893, 1895-97, 1905-07), the Goblets six (1890-91 and 1894-97), and the Diamonds five (1888-90 and 1893-94). All told, Nickalls won twenty-three events at Henley over twenty-two years, losing only thirteen of eighty-one races, a record that may never be equalled. Had he “ever made a spécialité of sculling, and got his hands and their work approximately accurate, no doubt that he would have been better than all,” wrote W.B. Woodgate; “as it was, now and then when he won Diamonds after grinding in other races at the same regatta, he showed evidence of pace which few amateurs could ever equal.” Nickalls capped and completed his career by winning the 1908 London Olympic Eight with Leander a few months short of his forty-second birthday (see below).

From 1913 through 1916 Nickalls coached Yale, enticed to New Haven by Averell Harriman and a sufficient stipend to help see his two sons through Eton. (Nickalls tried to join the army in 1914 on the outbreak of war, but was turned down on account of age. By late 1917 the army had a change of heart, sending him to France, then age fifty, as a Captain in the 23rd Lancashire Fusiliers in charge of physical and bayonet training.)  Though his Yale crews won two of the three years he was there, Nickalls found the environment stressful and foreign. He was partly to blame, by spouting opinions better left unsaid or if said, certainly not within earshot of the attentive rowing press. Yet such remarks -- “Their paddling is bad, their rowing, worse” (about the Yale 1916 crew) -- were wholly in line with his personality: as O.U.B.C. President, he nearly scotched the 1890 Boat Race by calling the Cambridge crew “probably a poorer lot than usual” in an official letter to his counterpart, S.D. Muttlebury. Son Gully later recalled:

''So far as he was concerned there were rarely two sides to any question. He was right. His opponents were not only wrong, but deliberately and wickedly wrong. So strong were his opinions that in argument he became so fierce, vehement and aggressive that a change of subject came as a welcome relief. . . .''

''His tact was atrocious. My mother went through agonies of apprehension. Always she knew by the trend of the conversation when he was about to drop some particularly heavy brick, and, with frantic winks and nods and desperate endeavours to turn the conversation into other channels, gallantly she would strive to steer him clear of immediate trouble. The difficulty was that he could never modify his point of view for the benefit of any one of the company. Nor could he be prevented from saying exactly what he thought. In private my mother would reproach him: “‘You’re not sane. You say such silly things. No wonder you’re so unpopular.” My father would reply:  “Of course I’m not popular. Few people with any character are.” He would then try to laugh off the matter and pretend that the whole thing was a grand joke. Sometimes, if it was known that he was going to meet certain people, we would endeavour to warn him beforehand of all the possible pitfalls. We were not particularly successful. The conversation would take some unexpected turn and we were sunk. Constant tutoring, combined with a certain mellowing natural to age, tended to improve his tact during his last few years, though he was never absolutely reliable.''

The unbounded energy Nickalls brought to rowing carried through his later years, though lack of tact and impatience with detail kept him from ever converting much of it into commercial success as a stockbroker (1892-1922) or advertising agent (1922-35). (Gully fared better, forty years the partner of Alfred Pemberton, son of Max, in their own advertising firm.) A relentless gardener and tennis player, Guy “could garden for two hours before breakfast, cut and mark out two tennis courts before lunch, and start tennis at 2.30 and play till 8.30 if he could find anyone to oppose him.”{{{ref|LAJ1}}  Among Nickalls’ habits that must have maddened his opponents, recalled Gully, “was his way, when he or his partner were serving, of keeping only one score when leading in any game. Thus, thirty, fifteen, was ‘Thirty here’; forty-fifteen, or forty-thirty, were both ‘Forty here’. The other side had to keep their own score.” He also “had the greatest attraction and fascination to children, and he was never so happy as when surrounded by them, leading some expedition to bathe in the river, to ferret, to dig a badger, or to go beagling.”  “He had a wholehearted zest for life and all that it offered,” wrote Gully. A friend recalled: “Every minute of his time was occupied. I don’t think he ever knew what it was to be dull or lonely. He loved to be surrounded by people, preferably the young. And for this reason he never really grew old. With a more helpful bank balance he would have made an admirable host on the grand scale.”

On July 6, 1935 Zürich Rowing Club won the Stewards’. “Thank God I have been spared to see what I believe to be the finest four of all time,” Guy told Gully. The next morning, Guy was in an auto accident en route to Scotland to fish, and died the following evening.

The 1908 London Olympics: Nickalls’ Finale
Due to bad weather, there was no rowing at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. There was at Paris in 1900 and St. Louis in 1904, but the U.K. sent only a sculler to Paris, St. George Ashe, who apparently had no ARA or other official backing, and sent no one at all to Athens or St. Louis. The isolation ended when London agreed to host the 1908 Games. The organizing committee assigned the rowing events to the ARA, whose Oxbridge leaders chose Henley as the venue and applied the ARA’s restrictive “amateur” definition to potential entrants, which effectively excluded the United States, France, Holland, Switzerland, and all but the Italian sculler from competition. The Belgians made the cut and since they had won the Grand Challenge Cup in 1906 and 1907, as well as the European Championships for ten of the previous eleven years, the ARA were determined to field strong crews for Britain. They selected two for the eights event: a composite crew of old and new Leander men in the orthodox mold, and Duggie Stuart’s C.U.B.C., which won the 1908 Boat Race but whose “sculling” style the Leander veterans thought incorrigible. At the Olympics, the Belgians beat Cambridge to advance to the final against Leander, and the stage was set for orthodoxy’s test. Nickalls’ account:

''The actual racing was really too easy to be exciting. We drew Hungary in the first heat, and paddled after the top of the Island. In the next heat Canada made a better show. They started at 43, and never got much below 40 at any point of the course. We started at 41, and, continuing at a level 36, we were from a length to a length and three-quarters ahead all the way up the course. After the Henley Regatta three-quarter mark, we let the stroke down to 34, and paddled in firmly, easy winners. In the final we met the redoubtable Belgian crew, the terror of the then modern English oarsmen, the crew who had beaten the famous Cambridge crowd more easily than even we veterans had expected. We were known to one and all as “the old crocks”. I may say our style was admitted to be of the best, but would-be-wiseacres shook their heads knowingly. Wait till the Belgians press them. Well, I had never been beaten by either a colonial or foreigner, and I certainly wasn’t going to be in my old age, and this my absolutely last race.''

''The start was beautifully level; they did 43 and we a long crisp 42. I had never felt the like of it, and never in my life had I felt like galloping at full tilt the whole distance. We had a quarter of a length lead at the end of a minute, and, letting the stroke drop to 38, led half a length at the end of two minutes. At the second signal box we led by three-quarters of a length, rowing 37. Cockie [Maclagan] had warned us that unless absolutely necessary he was not going to ask for more than one “ten”, and that we were to let ourselves go and give it good and strong. The psychological moment had arrived. Cockie’s clear voice rang out immediately after the Belgians’ great spurt at Remenham Farm had subsided.''

''“Now then, Leander, we’ll have our ten strokes and let them know it! One-”''

''The boat fairly leapt out of the water, up to 38 again. We fairly sang along, cleared them at once and began sailing away. Bucknall dropped to 36 again. The race was over. We had them beat. Don growled and broke into a paddle. I was all for rowing in at 40, but Cockie looked back.''

''“Take it easy and keep together, Leander,” shouted he, and we swung over the line easy winners, by more than two lengths, in record time. I had finished. Thanks entirely to the unselfish and patriotic action of the “old crocks” turning out again to show the younger generation how to row properly, I remained unbeaten by any colonial or foreigner. The victory of the orthodox in 1908 not only restored England’s prestige as the greatest rowing nation in the world, but straightened out the prevailing ideas on style and form which W.A.L. Fletcher and others had begun to decry.''

“Having just witnessed Olympic regatta while winding up these pages,” wrote W.B. Woodgate in his memoirs, “I venture to criticize the form there. It was below the average of ordinary Henley regattas between ‘90 and ‘02. The Leander eight was good, but not superlative: the Grand winners of ‘93 and 1902 would have beaten it, and others have tied it. Fours, pairs, and sculls were all below Henley average. Belgians, weaker than us, teach us valuable lessons in (1) uniform slide, (2) clean feather, (3) lively arm recovery. If they adopted our longer trunk swing they would be deadly. (Fas est et ab hoste doceri.) It is discredit to modern Oxford coaching that good men like Kirby and Southwell should be spoilt, and Leander be driven to fall back on veteran welters.”

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Nickalls G


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Smith WFD

“Head of the greatest publishing house in Christendom” (Spy), December 8, 1904
''Many years ago, when newspapers were few, when advertisements were taxed, and when the telegraph carried no daily tale of diplomacy or horror from the outside world, a newsman set up in business in Duke Street, off Grosvenor Square. His name was Smith. The little shop grew and prospered so fast that a branch office was opened in the Strand. Also he married; and from that union was born a Cabinet Minister.''

''He was not always a Cabinet Minister, though he was never a newsboy, as his enemies loved to have it. But he grew in stature, wealth and wisdom until he became a very John Bull in person, with an organising imagination such as was even rarer in those days than now. He obtained control of the railway bookstalls. He learnt the tastes of the counties -- that Yorkshire does not buy poetry nor Manchester expensive books. As education increased subscribers so did his business swell. Lending libraries, railway advertising contracts -- in such new branches did he expand himself. Finally he died, leaving something over two millions and the name of a shrewd and honest politician who had deserved well of his country. His widow was granted the title of Viscountess Hambleden.''

''He left one son, the Honourable William Frederick Danvers Smith, who inherited much of his father’s wealth, and is heir to his mother’s title. Freddie Smith was a pleasant-mannered Etonian, who found a place in his school eight, but was not allowed by the Oxford doctors to win the blue that would have otherwise been his. However, he rowed at Henley for Leander in 1888, when D.H. McLean was captain, and Muttlebury was another member of the crew. Through an effort to row about fifty to the minute they were beaten by Thames. He also stroked the New College boat in 1889 when they hunted B.N.C. for the Headship of the river.''

''He learnt the details of his business, but since he became a Member of Parliament has practically given up any active participation therein. But the work is in good hands.''

''The masses of high-piled literature on every bookstall at this festive season brings home the realisation that the firm of which he is titular head is, without doubt, the greatest publishing house in Christendom. It stands between the British public and the British Press like a conduit, silently and evenly supplying its rivers of information. In spite of all temptations and some abuse, it has held to cleanliness in print and picture, with one exception in a licensed jester that blushes to hear itself named.''

''Freddie Smith hunts a little and shoots a great deal. He married a daughter of the Earl of Arran. Lady Esther is a wise and charming hostess. Her week-end parties at Greenlands by Henley, and her dinners, whether political or purely social, in London have a pleasant reputation.''

''Freddie is a quiet fellow, with a pleasant manner and a kind heart. His conduct has never given gossip or criticism a chance.''

“The paper duty is gone. For the full results of its removal men must wait until we of the nineteenth century are no more,” Gladstone wrote in 1861 on the repeal of the last of the “taxes on knowledge,” a measure sponsored by T.G. Bowles’ father, Milner Gibson. Wentworth Dilke, grandfather of the eponymous rower of Vanity Fair and proprietor of the Atheneum literary magazine, had also opposed the paper duty and by helping end it fostered the expansion of the popular press. This proved a mixed blessing for his grandson, who used it to propogate his political views in the 1870s and early 1880s but was pilloried in print during and after the 1885-86 Crawford divorce case. But another rower of Vanity Fair, William Frederick Danvers Smith (1868-1928), could view the removal of the paper duty as having perhaps secured his future, for his grandfather and father, William and William Henry Smith, who had previously had the foresight and good luck to obtain long-term contracts for bookselling and advertising at a large number of railway stations, created a publishing empire that funded his entrée to Eton and Oxford.

At school and university, Freddie went went winless in four Henley appearances: with Guy Nickalls and Lord Ampthill for Eton in the 1886 Ladies’, for Leander in the 1888 Grand (as Vanity Fair noted), and for New College in the Grand in 1889 and 1890. But on leaving Oxford with a third class in modern history, Smith became a popular host to generations of university oarsmen at Greenlands, his expansive home just below the start of the Henley course. His 1890 coming of age party set the tone. “I never kept a game book nor jotted down anything in the nature of a shooting diary,” Nickalls recalled, “but our five days must have accounted for 2,000 pheasants and a number of partridges and hares. All very pleasant.”

In 1891 Smith inherited from his father not only Greenlands but also the family firm and a Conservative seat in the House of Commons, although the latter required ratification by the electorate at the October general election. Smith kept his seat until resigning in 1910, and joined the Lords in 1913 when his mother died and he became Viscount Hambleden. In neither place “did he make much figure as a politician,” unlike his father who held cabinet posts in the Disraeli and Salisbury governments. But like his father, the younger Smith was a lifelong churchman and philanthropist, especially benefitting various London hospitals. During the 1914-18 war, Smith served in Gallipoli and Egypt as Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal First Devon Yeomanry. Vanity Fair featured him a year before his company lost two key contracts for railway bookstalls, which precipitated in 1906 the launching of 200 new bookstores, the predecessors of today’s ubiquitous WHSmith shops.

Problems in Pairs
En route to winning the 1888 University Pairs, Nickalls and Smith had a hiccough in training. “Three days before the trial heat Freddie and I were rowing a course, and at the finish got too far over towards the Oxford bank,” Nickalls wrote. “Fred’s oar caught a boat and it lifted him clean overboard. We stopped dead. I looked round to see what damage had been done, and saw Fred swimming towards the Brasenose raft, and I got ashore on the Varsity raft without upsetting.” R.H. Forster celebrated such problems in pairs in this 1893 verse:

 * Stroke --

 * Why did I row in a pair?
 * Why wasn’t I sooner beheaded?
 * Why is Bow’s oar in the air,
 * While mine in the mud is embedded?
 * Why is his language so rank?
 * Bargees might hear it and quiver.
 * Why must he make for the bank?
 * Why can’t he stick to the river?

 * Bow --

 * Difficult ‘tis to discern
 * Why o’er the stretcher Stroke lingers.
 * Why does he bury the stern,
 * And bark on the gunwale my fingers?
 * Why made that coach such a row? --
 * His cox at the game isn’t handy:
 * Why am I now at the “Plough,”
 * Drinking hot water and brandy?

 * The Impartial Observer --

 * Here’s an infallible tip
 * For all who would go a-light-pairing:--
 * Smartness and watermanship
 * Move a boat faster than swearing.
 * Whether at stroke or at bow,
 * Drop all that snapping and sneering;
 * And don’t think your mate such a cow,
 * Because you mismanage the steering.

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Smith WFD


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Forster RH

“Bill” (ELF), July 6, 1910
''Although Mr. Forster is best known in connection with rowing matters, his interests range over a large field, as a reference to “Who’s Who” will verify. He is the author of many volumes of both prose and verse, is an archaeologist of repute, and is a barrister-at-law. Nor does this complete the list of his acquirements and activities.''

''He was born at Backworth forty-three years ago, the son of a Newcastle mining engineer, and in due time went to Aysgarth School, Harrow, to make his preliminary essays in learning. His introduction to books and book-learning seemed to be to his liking, for he quickly started on the business of education in grim earnest. The mere list of his successes is formidable, and calls for no comment: -- Entrance Scholarship, Harrow, 1881; Leaf Scholarship, 1885; Minor Scholarship, St. John’s, 1884; Foundation Scholarship, 1887; M’Mahon Law Student, 1891; 1st Class (3rd Division) Classical Tripos, 1888, and 1st Class (Senior) Law Tripos, 1889. Although he is not in practice, he was called to the Bar in 1892, and, had he chosen, might have made a name for himself in the law.''

''But circumstances and tastes led him elsewhere. He had for many years been fond of scribbling, and in 1898 published his first book, “The Hand of the Spoiler.” This was quickly followed by other volumes -- “The Amateur Antiquary,” “Down by the River,” “A Tynedale Comedy,” “The Last Foray,” “In Steel and Leather,” “Strained Allegiance,” “The Arrow of the North,” “The Mistress of Aydon,” and several volumes of verse. Of the prose work it is to be said that one could not expect better, while his verses are better than one could expect.''

''He has never essayed a wife, but, judging by his books, he is not a stranger to the sex. He has been for many years captain of the Thames Rowing Club, and as a coach has the respect which success imposes. On the river bank he has to perfection that mild, hesitating timidity of speech characteristic of successful coaches, and he has never been under any delusion as to the uses of a megaphone.''

George Baker Forster was First Captain of Lady Margaret Boat Club, won the Cambridge University Fours, rowed for C.U.B.C. against Oxford in the 1853 Grand (losing by a foot and a half to Chitty’s crew), and then retired from the sport. His son, Robert Henry Forster (1867-1923), was a less successful oarsman but became an accomplished coach. In 1888 at his first Henley Regatta, young Bill won the Ladies’ and the Thames with L.M.B.C. coached by his Trinity neighbor and future Thames R.C. compatriot, S.D. Muttlebury. From 1892 to 1903, having become a barrister, he unsuccessfully vied for the Grand, Thames, and Wyfolds with the Thames R.C., was its Captain most years from 1896 to 1907, and later became vice president. At the first part of the century the club’s fortunes “were at a very low ebb, owing to a paucity of good material,” recalled B.J. Angle, “and had it not been for Foster [sic] it is more than probable that the club would have permanently lost the position it had previously held in the rowing world. From 1897 to 1903 Thames won practically nothing, but in 1904 Foster’s untiring efforts at last met with reward, and since that date the club has gone steadily forward, until now it has quite gained its former position.” In 1910 he and Steve Fairbairn founded the Forster-Fairbairn Trial Pairs at Cambridge.

For writing on rowing, W.B. Woodgate and R.C. Lehmann take the gold among Vanity Fair contestants for prose and poetry respectively, but Forster contends for the combined event. He wrote the first volume of the L.M.B.C. history and the lyrics for two club songs (“Si Je Puis” and “Carmen Aquaticum”), and several short stories on rowing (from which are excerpted “My garments expansion require” and “Problems in pairs”). He also wrote “Notes on the Early History of Rowing” for the St. Johns’ College magazine, reflecting his deep interest in archaeology and ancient civilization. There he conjectures that “rowing was [first] practiced on the Nile at least as early as the reign of Khufu (3733 B.C.),” because tombs of the fourth dynasty (3766 to 3566 B.C.) depict “boats and oars of a type which altered but little during the subsequent course of Egyptian history.”

Bill once defined rowing as “seeking fame at the end of an eight-foot spruce.”

A Boat Race Fantasy
“[P]erhaps some day Mr. Forster will see his way to give us a real river story,” wrote The World (July 5, 1904), a knock-off of Vanity Fair, for “there are few good accounts of boat-racing in fiction -- the Ouidaeque oarsman who strokes ‘crack’ eights untrained being the favourite rowing hero of fiction.” After Oxford’s 1909-12 run in the Boat Race, Vanity Fair published just such a tale (April 3, 1912), though its author, “Cambriouleur,” was probably not Forster but B. Fletcher Robinson. Chastening the C.U.B.C. to “carry a reserve crew ready to step at a moment’s notice into the places of those who sink or expire” and otherwise to draw on all the resources of the University to gain victory, he launched into it:

''At this point you must allow me to relate the story of the great race of 18__, in which I played so conspicuous a part. The true story of that thrilling contest has never yet been told in print. In fact, only my grandchildren know it as it should be told. Every year on Boat-race night I gather the little ones round my knee and relate the story.''

''I was training for the Lents. I was a humble member of the Fifth Lent Boat, but one afternoon in early February our coach had been pleased to commend my oarsmanship. “Well rowed, bow!” he cried. Just at that moment who should be passing but the President of the C.U.B.C. on his ancient white charger! He heard the encomium and he looked in my direction. Without turning my ear I could feel his eye upon me. I rowed better than ever.''

''After Hall in the evening -- and I had dutifully passed my plate for a third helping of roast beef -- I was sitting in my armchair before the fire gazing pensively at my disused pipe, when there came a knock at the door. I was scarcely surprised to see that my visitor was the President himself. Instead of falling on the ground and worshipping, as I should have done in calmer moments, I asked him to be seated. He informed me that he had just looked in to ask me whether I should care to occupy the vacant bow thwart in the University boat. He said that bow had been giving a lot of trouble lately and had got to clear out.''

''“I was rather bothered,” he continued, “to know where to look for a thoroughly competent bow. But I happened to be on the towpath this afternoon and I noticed the magnificent work you were doing. I hope you won’t mind helping us out, old man.”''

“Not a bit, old chap,” I answered.

''“Spoken like a brick,” he replied. “By the way, we have put forward the boat-race on account of your engagement in the Lents. It is to be rowed to-morrow morning at ten o’clock. We have just time to catch the train. So come along.”''

''“Right,” I answered. “Have I time to change?”''

''“You can change at Putney,” he said. “I felt sure you wouldn’t refuse, so I have brought your blue along with me.” He exhibited a complete rig-out of light blue which he had brought with him in a brown-paper parcel.''

''At the gate he suddenly remarked, looking at his watch: “By Jove! I’m not sure that we shall do it in time, even if we do catch the train. Luckily, my horse is here. If you don’t mind getting up behind me we shall be at Putney by half-past nine easily.”''

''I mounted the white charger behind the President, and clasping him firmly round the waist, we set out at a hard gallop along the Trumpington Road. At Bishop’s Stortford the President looked at his watch. I heard him swear.''

''“Only half-an-hour before the gun goes,” he exclaimed. “You must change at once.”''

''So, while the white charger fled onward through Tottenham and Hempstead, I changed my clothes and donned the blazer and cap, the sweater and zephyr and shorts, casting my ordinary garments away as we rode. It was hard work getting into the armholes, but it was for my University, my Alma Mater, and I did it.''

''We were only just in time. The gunner stood with his lighted match at the porthole as we crossed Putney Bridge, and the vast concourse of spectators set up a thunderous shout of applause as we clattered down the towing-path. It was the work of a moment to fling off our outer clothes and leap into our seats -- the President at stroke and I at bow -- just as the gun went off with a deafening crash.''

''I noticed the Oxford cox scowl and frown when he saw me take my seat. I noticed the Oxford stroke set his teeth tighter. We were off!''

''Heavens, how I pulled! I was putting in two strokes to every one of the rest of the crew’s.''

“Well rowed, bow!” roared the cox through his megaphone.

''“Well rowed, bow!” roared the crowd on the banks. I could see ladies waving their handkerchiefs and children shouting on the house-tops. Faster and faster I rowed. The Oxford crew were biting their nails with vexation as they slipped further and further astern. The Oxford cox was cursing audibly. The Oxford stroke was pale with vexation. Faster and faster I rowed.''

''Suddenly the sky grew as black as pitch. “A storm, by Heaven!” shouted our cox through his megaphone. “Well rowed, bow!”''

''At that moment the black sky cracked open and a huge sheet of flame descended hissing upon the river. As soon as my dazed eyes could take in the spectacle I saw that the Oxford stroke had been struck by lightning and was gone. With magnificent sportsmanship our own stroke determined to equalise matters and leapt into the stream.''

''Faster and faster I rowed. Great angry billows rolled in upon our frail vessel as we shot through the gloomy arches of Hammersmith Bridge. Surely no boat could live in such a sea!''

''Ah! A huge green-backed monster descended upon our deck, carrying havoc as it came. Seven, six, and five were swept overboard into the boiling flood. Not to be outdone in generosity, the three corresponding Oxford oars dived overboard and swam for the bank.''

''Undermanned, waterlogged, and now at the mercy of wind and waves, we four survivors fought our way towards Barnes. Another flash of lightning carried off four and three in each boat. Faster and faster I rowed, and the stout ashen oar bent almost double in my hands, while the waves rose higher and higher. Suddenly there was a shriek from cox.''

''“The rudder is broken. I can steer no longer. I am only a burden to you. Farewell! Well rowed, bow!”''

I saw him plunge into the torrent, and two turned for a moment to grasp my hand.

“Barnes Bridge,” I shouted, “we’ll conquer yet!”

''Then, hurrah! the goal was close at hand, if I could only reach it.''

There arose a great shout from the banks -- “Cambridge has won.”

“And in record time, too, by Gad!” I heard the umpire remark.

I looked at the clock on the chimney-piece, and it said half-past ten.

That was the only time I ever rowed in the University Boat Race.

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Forster RH


text:
The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Ampthill Lord

“O.U.B.C.” (Spy), March 21, 1891
''Oliver Arthur Villiers Russell, the second Baron Ampthill, whose father was that eminent diplomatist who will always be remembered by the name Lord Odo Russell, was born in Rome two-and-twenty years ago. Naturally he went to Eton, where he became Captain of the Boats, President of “Pop,” and President of the Literary Society. He was also second Oppidan in the School, but failed to rise above mediocrity in any physical line save rowing. From Eton he went to New College, and to-day he will row his third University Boat Race; having been once beaten by Cambridge and having once succeeded in defeating them by a few yards after the best race on record since the Dead Heat of 1877. He has often been beaten at Henley; but last year, in the stout companionship of Mr. Guy Nickalls, he won the Silver Goblets; and he has occasionally won other races. At Oxford he has begun his school career over again, having been chosen President of the University Boat Club and of the Union Society; for which last office he beat an Archbishop’s son by six votes.''

''He is a very tall, very agreeable, and good-looking young man, with a long, strong back, which is worth much in a boat. He is a Freemason and a Liberal Unionist, though he has not yet become famous in the House of Lords. He intends to devote himself to the management of Foreign Affairs. He can shoot.''

He has many friends who call him “Dick.”

Like Freddie Smith and most anyone else, Lord Ampthill (1869-1935) usually won when Guy Nickalls was in the boat and fared worse when he was not. Wins with Nickalls were the 1888-89 University Pairs, the 1890-91 Boat Races and Goblets, and the 1891 Grand; losses without him were the 1887-88 Ladies’ and the 1889-90 Grand. Three rare losses with Nickalls were the 1886 Ladies’, the 1889 Boat Race, and the 1889 Goblets, and two wins without him were the 1888 and 1890 University Fours. So much for statistics.

Guy and Lord Ampthill were lifelong friends. Their travails in the Silver Goblets give some indication why, as recounted by Nickalls:

[1889:] ''Ampthill and I. . . met a very hot pair, Muttlebury and Gardner, in the final, which was one of the most severe races in which I was ever engaged. Up to Fawley we changed places about four times, but neither of us ever got more than a few feet advantage. We rowed level from there to the finish, stroke for stroke, side by side. In the last ten yards I thought we had the race but alas, Muttle scrambled over the line two feet ahead in 8 minutes 25 seconds; all four of us at the last gasp.''

[1890:] ''In the pairs our only opponents were a very hot pair, Francklyn and Muttlebury, but in the actual race Muttle was too powerful for his bow. They led us half a length at Remenham wall, where, not wanting to foul them, I called out to Muttle to get back in his water as I wanted to pass him. Muttle was very apologetic, eased up and let Francklyn pull the boat straight again. As we went by I was fouled by Francklyn’s oar, but naturally never claimed the foul, and, leading at Fawley by a quarter of a length, I could see we were quite safe, since every time Muttle tried to come up he had to put on the rudder against himself. We paddled ahead, had over a length at the mile, and won easily.''

[1891:] ''Dick and I had some excellent racing for the Goblets. In the first heat Frank Clarke and Hutchison led us by over two lengths at the half-mile, but I never believe or have believed that it is good for a big pair to start fast. We were level at the three-quarter mile and had nearly a length the best of it at the mile, and, easing up slightly, beat them by half a length. In the next heat the Thorn brothers led us by two lengths at Remenham. We were level at Fawley and, going away, won ridiculously easily in a slow paddle. The final against Wilkinson and Fletcher was another snorting race. In 1890 at Oxford we had beaten them by four feet. They got quite fast off the mark and led us by two lengths at Remenham, two and a half at Fawley, from which point I began, without quickening, to try and row them down, but gained nothing and tried spurting. By the White House we had recovered a length and a half, but they were still clear of us; however, another desperate spurt reduced their lead to half a length at the Isthmian Enclosure, where I went mad and called on Ampthill and all his gods for one last spurt. We wound it up and up, got level, and rowed for thirty yards or so, and our three last strokes lifted our boat over the line, winners by twelve inches.''

At Oxford, Lord Ampthill was “a remarkably handsome, tall young man of splendid physique and great personal charm,” while in maturity he “was stout, and his strong, resonant voice and dignified manner made him a ‘master of assemblies.’” With these qualities plus a “simple, straightforward character and unassuming friendliness” he collected presidencies, both athletic and non, to a degree rivalled only by W.H. Grenfell among the rowers of Vanity Fair :  Captain of Boats and President of the Eton Society (1887-88), President of the O.U.B.C. (1891, succeeding Nickalls), President of the Union Society (1891), President of the London R.C. (1893-1935), and Pro Grand Master (1908-35, the number two spot in English Freemasonry). Guy Nickalls made him godfather to son Gully, who recalled that Lord Ampthill “noticed that one of his chores was to take me to hear sermons. I am somewhat relieved to think that he never carried this into effect, though through the years he showed me a great many acts of kindness and affection.”

Professionally, Lord Ampthill did indeed devote himself to the management of Foreign Affairs. He became Assistant Private Secretary to Joseph Chamberlain in the Colonial Office in 1895, Private Secretary in 1897, and Governor of Madras in 1900 at age thirty-one, and pro tem Viceroy in 1904 on the retirement of Lord Curzon, who said that in matters of administration Lord Ampthill had an old head on young shoulders. That last position never became permanent, as he found himself increasingly allied with Indian nationals both in South and East Africa as well as their native country, and at odds with the British Government. During the 1914-18 war, Lord Ampthill commanded a battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment and two of the Bedfordshire Regiment in France.

He died of pneumonia July 7, 1935, a day before Nickalls, prompting the following anonymous epigram among the various tributes in the Times:

 * Oarsmen they lived, and silver goblets mark
 * The well-timed prowess of their trusty blades:
 * In death their rhythm kept, they now embark
 * To row their long last course among the Shades.

The 1890 Boat Race, Part II: Tom Nickalls’ Insider Trading
Tom Nickalls, Guy’s father, co-founded the London Rowing Club in 1856. In 1895, he presented the Nickalls’ Challenge Cup to go with the Silver Goblets, in honor of one or the other of his sons (Guy and Vivian) having won the event from 1890 to 1894. A wealthy stockbroker, Tom knew the value of a hot tip and, as the father of the 1890 O.U.B.C. President, put that paternal access to good use before the Boat Race. Guy’s version:

''[W]e did an enormous amount of long hard rowing and the crew were undoubtedly very fit, but about a week before the race, which was rowed on a Wednesday, we began to show signs of staleness. On the Thursday my father came down to see us row, and it was quite palpable that we were off colour. My father said:''

“Why don’t you take the crew away for a change?”

I said: “The O.U.B.C. have no money and cannot afford it.”

''My father, I may say, had taken the odds of 7-2 on Cambridge very heavily. He stood to take £7,000 off Paxton alone.''

''He telegraphed to the Grand Hotel at Brighton, booked rooms for us, and stood the crew a treat for a very long week-end, and away we went next day. On Saturday morning, for a joke, we ordered eight bath-chairs and were pulled up and down the front. Word was immediately telegraphed to London that all the crew were invalids, and it looked as if the race would not take place. The weather was lovely, and we stayed at Brighton until Tuesday morning and went for a short paddle and a minute’s row in the afternoon. A preliminary next morning, and then the race. . . .''

[After Oxford won:] My father came to the quarters with George Rowe and a host of others to join in the festivities, and slipped a cheque for a hundred pounds into my hand. Vanity Fair ’s post-mortem (March 29, 1890):

''The sudden revulsion at the last in the betting, which installed Cambridge as hot favourites vice Oxford, arose thus. Cambridge did a “record” time on the 20th which read A.1 on paper, -- though we discounted it somewhat in our comments last week. Following this Cantab feat, Oxford went weak and amiss on Friday and Saturday; and if the race had been rowed on the last-named day, Cambridge must have won. Even outsiders could see that Oxford were to pieces on Saturday. So there was on Wednesday morning a reaction and a hurried “getting out” on the part of many early backers of Oxford. Then the public rushed in, like sheep to a gap, and forced the odds up still more on Cambridge. Meantime, a Sunday at Brighton had set the Oxonians up again, and on Monday they were as good as ever they had been. Nothing could have been better than their form in surf that day; but only a few followed and watched them in the rain that afternoon. So they never regained public favour, and started at a considerable discount.''

title: The Rowers of Vanity Fair/Ampthill Lord