THE SPORT OF ROWING Drinkwater: “The first great amateur coach, he was to instil into the Cambridge crews in the years which followed the true science of rowing.”343 1840 In 1840, with Egan still at the tiller, Cambridge again won the Boat Race, but given that their radical new technique was plain for all to see, Oxford had observed, copied and begun to catch up. Rowe & Pitman: “Their attempt to emulate the superior style which Cambridge had shown in the preceding year enabled them to make a much closer race of it.”344 Indeed, Oxford led for the first half of the 5¾ mile course from Westminster to Putney. Treherne & Goldie: “Had they been as carefully trained as the Cantabs, they might have retained that lead, but they collapsed off the old Red House, Battersea, and were gradually overhauled. Cambridge had been rowing a game stern chase, and at last went by, but the race was well fought to Putney Bridge, and Cambridge were not clear [they were ahead by less than a length] when the boats shot that tumbledown structure.”345 After 1840 Egan remained heavily involved with Cambridge rowing through 1849. In 1841, no longer eligible to be a participant in the Boat Race, he coached the winning C.U.B.C. Blue Boat, and then he coxed the victorious entry in the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. The latter crew was the Cambridge Subscription Rooms, an alumni boat based in London. The following year, Egan again prepared Cambridge for the Boat Race and 343 Drinkwater, p. 16 344 Rowe & Pitman, p. 111 345 Treherne & Goldie, p. 138 coxed the Blue Boat three weeks later during the heats of the Grand. He then moved back to his defending-champion Cambridge Subscription Rooms boat for the Grand Challenge Cup final, which they won narrowly over the Light Blue Boat Race crew.346 Alfred H. Shadwell Both years’ Subscription Rooms boats had multiple members of Egan’s Boat Race champion crews of 1836, 1839 and 1840, but as we trace the migration of English Orthodox Technique, one name stands out, Alfred Hudson Shadwell, the oldest of four brothers who had learned their rowing at Eton between 1833 and 1840. Their father, Sir Lancelot Shadwell, was a barrister and MP. He became Vice- Chancellor of England in 1827. Alfred was the best athlete of his family while at Eton, winner of the School Sculling and a member of the Eight and the Monarch ten-oar in 1835, only his third year of rowing. His crews also contained his future Cambridge stroke, E.S. Stanley. In 1836, Alfred’s final year at Eton, he came first in School Pulling, rowed 3 in the Eight’s win over Westminster and again rowed in the Monarch in the Procession of Boats. Like all his brothers, Alfred Shadwell was a bit on the small side for rowers of his era, weighing only 10 st. 7 lb. (147 lb. 67 kg) when he got to Cambridge and joined Lady Margaret Boat Club of St. John’s College.347 He rowed bow in the winning Light Blue Boats of 1839 and 1840, with Egan as his coxswain and coach. After taking leave of University, he carried on in rowing for Egan’s Cambridge Subscription Rooms crews in 1841, ‘42 and ‘43. 346 Burnell, Oxford and Cambridge, p. 197 347 They row with scarlet blades. 98
