Foundation

Thames Rowing Club was founded under the name City of London Rowing Club and according to its first rules, its objects were 'organised pleasure or exercise rowing'.^[6](p3) The earliest surviving minutes of a club meeting are dated January 1861 but are headed 'City of London Rowing Club. Established 1860', and 1860 is commonly accepted as the year of foundation.^[2](p6)

The initial members were chiefly clerks and salesmen working in London's textiles trade around Fore Street and St Paul's Churchyard.^[7] The early meetings are known to have taken place in the Lord Raglan public house in St Martin's-le-Grand.^[2](p12) The club had boats at Simmons Boathouse (the building currently occupied by Chas Newens Marine) and a room at the Red Lion Hotel at the foot of Putney High Street.^[6](p3) There were very few members at first, but the numbers rapidly increased, and in 1862, when club races were first started, the club numbered nearly 150.

In 1862, the club sought and gained the permission of Frank Playford, the only traceable member of "The Thames Club" which had rowed on the Tideway in the 1840s, to rename itself "The Thames Rowing Club".^[6](p4)

Early successes

By 1864 a growing interest in competition led to the club's first recorded win, in a four-oared race against the Excelsior Boat Club of Greenwich. The club also put on a crew for the Metropolitan Junior Eights, started in 1865, and followed this up the next year by securing the Challenge Cup for Junior Eights at the first Metropolitan Regatta.^[6](p4)

In 1870 the Club won at Henley Royal Regatta for the first time, taking the Wyfold Challenge Cup from the Oscillators Club of Surbiton and the Oxford Etonians in a race that, according to the Rowing Almanack, was ‘a pretty hollow affair, the Thames crew winning as they pleased from first to last.’^[6](p8)

Over the next twenty years, Thames had its first great flowering, with 22 wins at Henley by 1890, including four victories in the most prestigious event, the Grand Challenge Cup for eights.^[8]

In 1877 the Thames Boathouse Company (Limited) was formed for the purpose of providing a boat and club house for the club. Money was raised by means of shares, the club and the company being kept quite distinct.^{[9](pp51–52)} The construction of the present Thames boathouse on a site about 300 yards above that of London Rowing Club followed and the building was completed in 1879 at a cost of over £3000.^[10](p245)

Thames, under its captain James Hastie, was now established as a mainstay of amateur rowing in London, and as a rival to its Putney neighbour London Rowing Club.^[11] In 1879 Thames, like London, was one of the founder clubs of the Metropolitan Rowing Association which later became the Amateur Rowing Association (ARA).^[12] As a result, Thames was one of five clubs which had the right until 2012 to appoint representatives to the Council of the ARA and its successor British Rowing. The others were Leander Club, London Rowing Club, Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club.^[13]

This early period was the time of the great Victorian amateur. Many Thames members were keen on all sports and the club itself also had an influence beyond rowing:

In December 1867, Thames organised a two and a half mile handicap steeplechase or paperchase similar to a cross-country race around Wimbledon Common as part of the oarsmen's winter training. These are generally accepted as the first open cross-country events to have taken place in Britain. One eventual result was the foundation of the Thames Hare and Hounds in October 1868, the first cross-country club, which would itself go on to an illustrious history.^[14]

Another addition to rowing training was boxing, with a ring frequently set up in the hall at the clubhouse. George Vize, a member of five winning crews at Henley, became amateur heavyweight champion of Britain in 1878 and a founder member of the Amateur Boxing Association. Boxing finally disappeared after the First World War, when the coach Steve Fairbairn ended it because of the damage caused to oarsmen's hands.^[6](p10)

From the 20th Century to the present day

From the late 1890s into the first decade of the 20th century, Thames suffered a decline but recovered as the decade wore on, notably through the efforts of Julius Beresford and Karl Vernon.^{[6](pp45–53)}

After the First World War, Thames came under the influence of the coach Steve Fairbairn. Fairbairn was an Australian graduate of Cambridge, with boundless charisma and innovative (and highly controversial) views on training and technique. He was one of the major influences on the club and on the sport in general, becoming generally accepted as the father of modern rowing. Under his tutelage in the 1920s, and that of Julius Beresford, Thames reached new heights. Fairbairn left the club for London Rowing Club in 1925. The precise reasons are unclear but undoubtedly a clash with Julius Beresford was partly at the root: the two coaches, despite holding similar views on technique, were unable to get on. Under Beresford, Thames won four events at Henley in both 1927 and 1928, something which no club replicated in the 20th century.^{[6][15](pp167–208)}

At the same time, Thames was home to Britain's greatest ever single sculler. Jack Beresford (son of Julius) took Silver at the 1920 Amsterdam Olympics in an epic race with Jack Kelly, before going one better with Gold at Paris in 1924. He won the Diamond Sculls at Henley four times and the Wingfield Sculls for the Amateur championship of Great Britain a record seven times. Then, with Thames crews, he took three further Olympic medals: Silver in the eight in Antwerp, 1928, Gold in the coxless four in Los Angeles, 1932 and Gold in the double scull in Berlin, 1936. It would be 60 years before Steve Redgrave bettered his record.^{[6](pp57–94)}

Although never again reaching the heights of the late 1920s, Thames continued to be successful through the thirties and then, after the Second World War, into the forties and fifties. However, in the early sixties the club began to experience a marked decline in membership and standards. By the early seventies Thames had very few active members and came close to bankruptcy. The club went for 47 years from 1956 without a win by a men's crew at Henley Royal Regatta.^{[6](pp97–141)}

In 1972, Thames became one of the first British rowing clubs to admit women and rapidly became the powerhouse of women's rowing, a position it retains to this day.^[6](p143) Thames women represented Great Britain at every Olympic Games between Los Angeles and Beijing.^[16][17] Sisters Guin Batten and Miriam Batten won Silver in the quadruple scull at the Sydney Olympics.^[18] Elise Laverick won Bronze in the double scull at the Athens Olympics in 2004^[19] and in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.^[20] Since the founding of Henley Women's Regatta in 1987, the Club has won there 55 times with the most recent wins being the aspirational club eights in 2022.^[21]

In 2003, Thames achieved an emphatic win in the Wyfold Challenge Cup ending 47 years without a men's win at Henley.^[22]

In 2005, Thames crews reached the finals of the Wyfold Challenge Cup, the Britannia Challenge Cup, the Princess Grace Challenge Cup (for women's quadruple sculls) and the Remenham Challenge Cup (for women's eights). The club won the last of these – the first win by a solely Thames women's crew at Henley Royal Regatta.^[23]

In 2006 came another win in the Wyfold Challenge Cup.^[24]

There then followed a period where, despite coming close, there were no Henley wins. However, in 2015 Thames won the Thames Challenge Cup for club eights, the first time the club had done so since 1934.^[25] This was followed in 2016 by a win in the Visitors' Challenge Cup for intermediate coxless fours – the first win for Thames in this event.^[26]

In 2017, there was an unprecedented achievement: two Thames crews reached the final of the Thames Challenge Cup, with Thames A beating Thames B by 5 lengths.^[27]

The following year, Thames retained the Thames Challenge Cup, and won the Britannia Challenge Cup for the first time in its history, setting a course record in the process.^[28][29]

There were no wins in 2019, and in 2020 the regatta did not take place owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[30]

In 2021, Thames reached four Henley finals for the first time since 2005: the Thames Challenge Cup, the Wyfold Challenge Cup, the Princess Grace Challenge Cup and the new Wargrave Challenge Cup for club women's eights, going on to win the Thames and the Wyfold (the latter for the first time since 2006).^[31][32]

At the 2022 regatta, Thames again reached four finals – this time of the Wargrave Challenge Cup, Thames Challenge Cup, Wyfold Challenge Cup and Britannia Challenge Cup. There were wins in all but the Thames, to give the club its most successful Henley Royal Regatta since 1928.^[33][34][35] In the final of the Wargrave, the Thames crew set new records to all of the timing markers.^[36]

Rowing by older oarsmen (and more recently oarswomen) has been a part of the club's activities throughout its history, but has increased since the 1970s in line with more national and FISA (international) Masters Competition now on offer. A group of casual and veteran men came into existence in the 1970s; separate groups of masters oarsmen and women of different ages have since arisen from time to time.

Wins at Henley Royal Regatta

(Composites marked with an asterisk)

Wins at Henley Women's Regatta

Recent wins at British Rowing Championships

(Composites marked with an asterisk)