Notes from History
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Wally Whedal's Rowing Alphabet
8th January 2020
As the Club approaches its 130th anniversary, members will doubtless be relieved to hear that we will not be publishing an updated version of the club history. However, your club historian felt that this occasion should not be allowed to pass without regaling members with a gem from the 1920s -...
The Passing of the Old Guard
14th September 2019
The Cygnet Boat Buying Programme, dreamed up by then captain Richard du Parcq in 1979, has been the club's salvation, furnishing us with a fleet of modern equipment that few would have envisioned forty years ago. In time, all boats work their way down the pecking order before being pensioned-off...
The Royal Henley Peace Regatta 1919
26th June 2019
At 3.12pm on Saturday, 28th June 1919, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles officially bringing the First World War to an end. What followed was a huge outpouring of celebrations, official and unofficial, throughout the United Kingdom that lasted for weeks. Every household, club and society...
One Hundred Years Ago
12th February 2019
Reunion and Rebuilding The world of 1919 was very different from 1914 when so many men had departed in high spirits for the Western Front. Organised sport had ceased to exist in all but name for the best part of five years and those Cygnet members returning from France were uncertain of what or...
From Rowers to Riflemen
11th November 2018
A commemoration of Cygnets in WWI Any institution that has been around for over a century is unlikely to have escaped the dead hand of warfare; Cygnet Rowing Club is no exception. The outbreak of the Boer War, less than ten years after Cygnet's foundation, would be the first conflict to claim...
The Fallen
11th November 2018
Lest we forget Wilfred Thomas Dooley was born in 1888 and lived in Willesden. Wilfred followed in his father's footsteps, joining the Post Office straight from school in 1907 as a sorter/tracer. Elected as an active member of Cygnet in March 1914, his exposure to rowing on the Tideway would be...
'Oily Rags' row at Henley
1st July 2018
Stop Press: 'Oily Rags' row at Henley This year marks the 80th anniversary of the first occasion that a crew from Cygnet rowed at Henley Royal Regatta (HRR). That said, though, Cygnet's name does not actually grace the pages of the regatta programmes because the club raced under the colours of the...
A little bit of History
1st April 2018
From time to time, items of Cygnet memorabilia come up on ebay. In late-January, Tim Koch, an Auriol-Kensington member and rowing history buff, alerted us to the following sale item: 'Antique National Amateur Rowing Association Silver and Gold Watch Fob for Cygnet Rowing Club, 1901'. We wasted no...
