OUR ANCESTORS 5. Henley-on-Thames Henley Royal Regatta – Amateurism in Sport For two centuries, we can take pride that rowers in particular have been at the forefront of society in England. The best and the brightest. They have also been in the forefront of the development of many other modern sports. One member of the Thames Rowing Club helped found the Amateur Boxing Association,252 and when Thames R.C. organized some cross country runs in the 1860s, the activity developed into the Thames Hares and Hounds. The Amateur Athletics Association, one of the world’s first track and field federations, was the ultimate result.253 “Hares and Hounds,” also known as “Hashing,” has become a sport of sorts that survives into the 21st Century. Interestingly, during the 19th Century the sport of rowing actually changed the face of all sport worldwide. The trouble was that those crude, uneducated, unsavory and possibly criminal Thames watermen had bodies coarsened and hardened by many years of the most strenuous manual labor. They were men “to whom the sun, rough seas and strong winds were familiar, and whose physiques and faces reflected their continuing battles with the elements.”254 No member of the British leisure class could hope to compete head-to- head with them in an athletic contest, and it 252 Page, p. 10 253 Ibid, p. 6 254 King, www.rowingcanada.org was considered patently unfair to ask him to do so. In fact, working that hard at anything at all seemed “ungentlemanly” to the English aristocracy, and certainly not in the spirit of fair athletic competition. But it was far more than that. The gap in social class was wide and deep, and the distinction was profoundly felt and personal. Rowing historian John Hall-Craggs, Shrewsbury School and St. John’s College,255 Cambridge, a member of the victorious 1956 Light Blue Boat, is a champion rower from a long line of champion rowers, and he is uncomfortable with contemporary observers and historians (such as myself) applying 21st Century values to 19th Century Britain. Hall-Craggs: “[The modern ethics of] sport did not exist in the very early days. It had to evolve. I know this sounds obvious, but present day study can easily ignore the conditions of those early times. “As an example, one interesting extract from the Durham Regatta on the 18th of June, 1860 involved one of my forebears: In the Scurry Stakes, there were five entries: M. Craggs, in Little Agness, G.D. Newby in Phantom, L.H. Clasper256 in Tat, T. Robinson in Never Despair, and J. Bone 255 They row with navy blue blades. 256 L.H. (Harry) Clasper (1812-1870) was a famous professional rower and boatbuilder from Newcastle-on-Tyne. He is credited with many innovations, including the invention of the metal outrigger. 75
