OUR ANCESTORS 1. who has ever competed in an open competition for a stake, money, or entrance fee; 2. who has ever competed with or against a professional for any prize; 3. who has ever taught, pursued, or assisted in the practice of athletic exercises of any kind as a means of gaining a livelihood;289 4. who has been employed in or about boats for money or wages; 5. who is, or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan, or laborer, or engaged in any menial duty; 6. who is disqualified as an amateur in any other branch of sport.290 Artisans The portion of the definition which excluded anyone who worked any trade whatsoever was controversial almost from the outset. The Amateur Rowing Association (ARA), a direct offspring of London’s Metropolitan Rowing Association,291 was formed in 1882, and the definition of amateur that they espoused also excluded artisans. This caused the National Amateur Rowing Association to be formed in 1890. They adopted a similar definition, except the tradesman clause was excluded. Separate federations. Separate competitions. According to the 1988 BBC program, The Thames: “The rules of the Amateur Rowing Association applied not only at Henley but at all regattas that excluded manual workers, tradesmen and watermen.292 It was a distinction steeped in Victorian snobbishness. “Some of the Victorian class distinctions were beginning to break down in the 1920s and ‘30s, but a strange and persistent snobbery had arisen with the sport of rowing. Among oarsmen, there was an apartheid, as George Kenyon discovered when he took up rowing at the Vickers works in Weybridge in 1935: “The other apprentices said to me, ‘Well, how about coming down to the rowing club on Sunday? We’ve got a visitors’ day.’ “I didn’t realize at that time what a peculiar structure the rowing world had. I became quite active and thoroughly enjoyed it, but at that time there was a virtual ban on artisans taking part in amateur regattas. You had this division between the white collar workers and the blue collars, you might say, and this was rather ironical at Vickers because, you see, you had people ranging from the clerical grades right through to mathematicians, draftsmen and designers on the white collar side who were able to join the Amateur Rowing Association. In the works, you had people ranging from unskilled people, laborers right through to the higher skilled toolmakers, instrument makers, people of that sort who because of the fact that they worked with their hands were excluded from the amateur rowing field. This caused a little bit of friction between the two sides.”293 In 1905, a member of the University of Pennsylvania Crew that competed at Henley in 1901294 was quoted in The Century 289 This section would force the earliest authors of rowing manuals to write anonymously. They might have stood accused of “assisting in the practice of athletic exercises.” See Chapters 6 and 8. 290 Rowe & Pitman, p. 151 291 Page, p. ix 292 “Actually, ARA rules did not apply to HRR, though HRR rules followed ARA rules closely, and still do. HRR is not affiliated to ARA (now named British Rowing despite its lack of jurisdiction over Scotland, Wales or Ireland).” – Chris Dodd, personal correspondence, 2011 293 The Thames, BBC 1988 294 See Chapter 37. 83
