Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums Blog

Defending the Fort

Our first exhibition for the year here at Arbeia is all about the fort defences – the walls, ditches, ramparts, gates and towers that defined the fort. During the research for it we came across old photographs of all the excavations that have been carried out on the defences over the years. The first photograph was taken in 1961 and shows a section of one of the ditches on the east side, carried out by the South Shields Archaeological and Historical Society.

Excavating the east ditch at South Shields Roman Fort in 1961.

The second photo dates from 1977 and shows the remains of the curved wall of the angle-tower at the south-east corner of the fort. Behind the area under excavation is the old Victorian school, before its demolition. Where all the excavators are digging is where the reconstructed Commanding Officer’s house stands today.

Excavations in the south-east corner of South Shields Roman Fort in 1977. In the foreground is a trench leading down into the ditch.

The final photograph comes from the mid-80s and shows the ditches outside the west gate under excavation … and the west gate under construction.

The ditches outside the west gate at South Shields Roman Fort under excavation. Beneath all the scaffolding the reconstructed gateway takes shape.

Strange to think that gateway is now over 30 years old!

The Development of the Racing Shell: Tyne Innovations Part 2 – by Ian Whitehead

Discovery Museum Local History Social History The Archives
Posted by administrator on March 27, 2018 Permalink Leave a comment

In Part 1 I looked at the origins of boat racing on the River Tyne and went on to explore the Tyne contribution to the invention and refinement of the outrigger, the bringing inboard of the keel, single strake (shell) construction and the refinement of foot steering for coxless pairs and fours.

In Part 2 I will move on to look at the development of the sliding stroke, followed by the adoption of the sliding seat, and also to what seems to have been the first bowloader coxed boat, racing in the Tyne Regatta in 1872, 80 years before the generally accepted first appearance of the bowloader, in Germany in the 1950s.

The sliding seat

As early as the 1850s, or most likely before that, Harry Clasper and his brothers were sliding on their fixed seats to give extra length and power to their stroke. Reports of their appearance at the 1844 Thames Regatta refer to “their peculiar style of rowing” (Newcastle Weekly Journal (NWJ) Saturday June 28^th 1845) and “with a stroke peculiar to themselves” (NWJ June 29^th 1844). To use the sliding motion an oarsman had to sit low in the boat, straighten his legs during the stroke by driving off the footboard, and perhaps most importantly, have his feet firmly strapped to the board so he could pull himself forward at the end of the stroke. This technique contrasted with that of sitting still on the seat, with almost all movement, and most power, coming from above the waist. The sliding on the fixed seat technique quickly became identified as the “traditional Tyne stroke”, but, even on the Tyne, some rowers slid hardly at all, while others, as contemporary reports put it, “made good use of the footboard”. Bob Cooper, “the Redheugh ferryman”, rowed at a high tempo which did not allow for much use of the legs, while the Champion sculler, Bob Chambers, made considerable use of his legs to row a long, powerful stroke.

Model of a fixed seat skiff (single scull) c.1860. This simple, but elegant, solid hulled model is representative of the type of boat used by Harry Clasper, Robert Chambers and James Renforth. TWCMS : B9758 Scale 1:12

There were a number of attempts to develop a sliding seat in the 1860s. Walter Brown, the American sculler who later beat William Sadler on the Tyne in 1869, tried one in 1861. A Dr. Schiller of Berlin made a slide using small wheels in 1863, but nobody achieved sufficient success to encourage the best oarsmen to switch away from fixed seat rowing.

Indeed, at this time there was not a general acceptance that sliding was superior to sitting still. Followers of rowing could see the benefits of the extra power and length of stroke, but weighed those against the effect on the “run”, or momentum, of the boat when an oarsman pulled his weight towards the stern to get in position to take his next stroke. It was also much harder to keep a crew rowing in time together if they were sliding as part of the stroke. After Harry Kelley of Putney, who sat still on his seat, defeated the North’s beloved Bob Chambers in 1865, those who favoured the straight-backed, non-sliding technique could justifiably claim that their method was as good as, or better than, the sliding technique developed on the Tyne.

Cockpit of a model of a fixed seat skiff (single scull) c. 1860. The seat is the long flat board that was required to use a sliding stroke on a fixed seat, although the footboard is missing. The frame which once held the footboard in position probably came adrift at the same time. Sadly, it appears that somebody has since glued this frame across the cockpit in a position that would have prevented the full-sized boat from being sculled! TWCMS : B9758 Scale 1:12

The arrival of James Renforth on the scene quickly began to alter opinion. At first observers declared his stroke ugly – The Daily Telegraph dubbed him the “Radical” oarsman – but they soon recognised the effectiveness of his thigh-thrusting, leg-driving, bottom-sliding technique. His unbroken string of victories in all boats; single sculls, pairs and fours, forced the pundits to accept that Renforth’s stroke was better for winning races than the seemingly more stylish techniques employed by his opponents.

A reporter writing for Bell’s Life after Renforth’s victory over Kelley in November 1868 put it like this:

“One very notable feature of his style is the great use he makes of his legs; indeed, we have no hesitation in saying that we never met with a sculler, not even excepting the late Bob Chambers who so fully understood the important art of bringing every muscle together with the full weight of the body to bear on every stroke; and we are satisfied that this is the great secret of his wonderful turn of speed, which enabled him to vanquish such a “flier” as Kelley.”

Having run out of opponents willing to take him on in single sculls, Renforth increasingly rowed as stroke oar in pairs and fours. Men who came into his boat had to adapt to his style.

James Renforth shown on the River Tyne in his skiff. This print was probably produced after his death in 1871. David Clasper

Renforth’s dominance had its effect on those who were trying to develop a successful sliding seat. The campaign to North America in 1870 and the victory at Lachine seems to have influenced the Americans, and in particular J C Babcock of the Nassau Rowing Club of New York, a champion oarsman and sculler. Babcock had experimented with a slide in 1857 but did not consider it a success. In 1870 he tried again and this time was pleased with the results that he obtained with a trained crew. Novices however, found it more difficult than fixed seat rowing.

Babcock’s slide used a seat which was a 10 inch-square wooden frame covered with leather and grooved at the edges to slide on two brass tracks fastened on the thwart, allowing a slide of 10-12 inches. The tracks were lubricated with lard and gave a ‘rowing’ length of slide of up to 6 inches. Babcock wrote a letter about the slide to Waters Balch on 14 December 1870, which shows how Renforth’s 1870 crew was influencing his thinking. It concludes:

“The slide properly used is a decided advantage and gain of speed, and the only objection to its use is its complication and almost impracticable requirement of skill and unison in a crew, rather than any defect in its mechanical theory. When we take into consideration that the best oarsmen in the world, the Tynesiders, slide, when spirting, from four to six inches on a fixed seat, the moveable seat can only be considered as a mechanical contrivance, intended for a better accomplishment of the sliding movement in rowing.”

By 1871 American professionals were successfully using slides of the Babcock type in races, notably at Saratoga, and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they competed against Winship’s crew and Chambers’ crew, which was made up of the remaining four from Renforth’s crew, following Renforth’s untimely death. The Biglin crew competed using slides at Saratoga in both the fours and the sculls races. They did not win, but then neither did either of the English crews. Ironically the fours race was won by the Ward brothers, rowing in Dunston-on Tyne, the Jewitt-built fixed seat boat in which Renforth’s crew had triumphed at Lachine the previous year.

After competing in regattas at Saratoga, Longueil, Halifax and Quebec, the two predominantly Tyneside crews – Joe Sadler was the Londoner in Winship’s crew, and Harry Kelley rowed in the Chambers crew – returned to England. They received great receptions, with an estimated 10,000 people turning out to greet the Chambers crew at Newcastle. Hostilities resumed almost immediately. A four-oared race for £400 (the 2017 equivalent might be as much as £330,000) was set to take place on the Tyne on Wednesday 22nd November and both crews went back into training. The races in North America had not conclusively proved which was the better of the two. The only way to decide was in the traditional manner, with a match over the Tyne Championship course.

Photograph of the Winship Four 1871 taken in the USA or Canada when this crew competed in a number of regattas during the summer. From the left, Thomas Winship (stroke), Robert Bagnall (3), Joseph Sadler (2) and James Taylor (bow). Gateshead Libraries

When the two crews appeared at the start the Winship four, rather surprisingly, were rowing with slides. These worked on the same principle as those of American design they had encountered across the Atlantic, but they had front and back stops to prevent the seat from becoming detached from the slide, and the slides were made of steel. The crew had only used them for the first time the day before the race, but they had obviously concluded that the risk of using the sliding seats was worth taking, despite their lack of practice with them. One detects the hand of James Taylor, the inveterate experimenter, in the decision to row with slides but there is no mention in the race report that he was behind this bold choice. It seems exceptionally bold when one considers the huge sum of money riding on this one race.

Robert Bagnall, then aged 22 and, following the death of Renforth, the best Tyneside sculler in training, rowed behind Winship at 3. The seat and slide which he used in this historic race is on display at Discovery Museum, Newcastle.

This is the seat that Bagnall used when part of the Winship crew that took the four oared Championship of the Tyne on 22 November 1871. Bagnall was 22 years old, weighed 10 stone 7 lbs and was 5 feet 8 inches tall. TWCMS : E7199. Discovery Museum

In the event they won the race, completing the destruction of the former Renforth crew and ensuring that oarsmen throughout Britain would swiftly adopt the use of sliding seats. Tynesiders had probably been sliding on their seats since the 1840s, but henceforth they would be sliding with their seats. They could also look forward to less trouble with boils on their buttocks – something that Percy had suffered from in the run-up to this race.

The Newcastle Daily Chronicle of Thursday November 23rd 1871 in its conclusion to the race report put it thus:

“The result of this contest will most probably be the adoption of the sliding seat, at least in fours, and perhaps in pairs and skiffs as well.”

Although this reflects a rather Tyne-centred view of the rowing world, the success of Renforth and his companions over the previous three years did seem to justify opinions such as these.

The development of a practical slide is quite rightly assigned to Babcock. However, Renforth’s success with a stroke which manifestly involved sliding considerably, albeit on a seat rather than with a slide, encouraged Babcock and his contemporaries to press on with their experiments. Renforth was so dominant after November 1868, in all boats, that his technique was recognised as providing significant extra power from the legs. The Tyne has no claim on the invention of the slide but Babcock’s letter of 1870, acknowledging that the Tynesiders were the best oarsmen in the world, and that he was only trying to achieve mechanically what they did when they slid on their seats, shows the influence that Renforth and his crews had on Babcock’s thinking.

A Tyne bowloading coxed four 1872

A modern bowloading coxed four

It has been generally accepted in the rowing world that the first boats to feature a coxswain positioned in the bow were pair oars, developed by Georg von Opel in Germany in the 1950s. The new arrangement was immediately successful and the practice soon spread to fours. However, while looking at contemporary news reports of the Tyne Regatta of July 1872 I came across an account of a bowloading four that won the professionals race and a prize of £50 (worth perhaps £5,500 today (2018). The boat had to win a heat before progressing to the final, so it was no fluke, and there was serious money at stake! But, just as interesting as the victory itself is the sequence of events that led to the decision to position the cox in the bow.

You may recall from part 1 of this blog that the Canadian St. John crew won the amateurs race at the Great International Regatta in Paris in 1867 in a foot-steered, coxless four. James Taylor was a member of the Tyne four that won the professionals race at the same regatta so had an opportunity to observe the steering mechanism. Eighteen months later Taylor fitted foot steering to a pair and, rowing with James Renforth, defeated Matthew Scott and Andrew Thompson on the Tyne for a stake of £50 a-side.

When, in 1870, the St John crew challenged the Tyne Champion Four to a race in Canada the match was made in coxless fours. The Tyne men won, but a new challenge came from St John in 1871 and once again the match was made in coxless fours. The Tyne Champion Four lost the race when James Renforth collapsed shortly after the start of the race and died a few hours later. However, following this tragedy, the rest of the crew and another crew made up three Tyne men, James Taylor, Robert Bagnall and Tom Winship, plus the Londoner Joseph Sadler, contested coxless fours races at Saratoga, Longueil, Halifax and Quebec. Thus, the top Tyne professionals became familiar with racing in coxless boats in North America. When the Taylor – Winship crew returned home and agreed articles to race against Renforth’s old crew for the Championship of the Tyne the match was made in coxless boats. Both crews had matching new boats built by Robert Jewitt. The Taylor-Winship boat, The Adelaide, was built with no room for a cox in the stern and it was fitted out with sliding seats. The other boat was named The Renforth.

The Taylor-Winship crew duly won the Championship of the Tyne on Wednesday 22^nd November 1871 and in its closing remarks the Chronicle predicted, “It is in every way likely that the Renforth four will now dissolve partnership”.

The successful Taylor-Winship crew remained together for the 1872 season and at the beginning of July were preparing to race at the Tyne Regatta. As expected, the Renforth four had broken up, but a new four had formed around two of its former members, the veteran Harry Kelley in the 3 seat and James Percy in the bow seat. This was known as the Blenheim crew, named after the public house that Harry Kelley was now running in Newcastle.

Photograph of the Renforth Four (with spare man) 1871. Clockwise, from left, James Percy (bow), Robert Chambers (from Wallsend) (2), Harry Kelley (3), James Renforth (stroke) and John Bright (spare man). The Blenheim crew that contested the fours race at the Tyne Regatta included James Percy (bow) and Harry Kelley (3) but Thomas Matfin replaced the late James Renforth at stroke, and Ralph Hepplewhite was at (2) in place of Robert Chambers.
David Clasper

These two crews were the favourites for the regatta’s prime race for professionals.

“ NORTHUMBERLAND STAKES, a four-oared race, with coxswains, open to all. Prizes: First boat, £50; second boat, £20; third boat, £10. Entrance, 2s. 6d. per oar. Distance one mile and a quarter.”

The Northern and Albion Rowing Clubs had also entered crews so four boats would be competing for the £50 prize.

The Tyne Regatta was largely administered and managed by senior figures from the Tyne Amateur Rowing Club. This provided an intriguing aspect to this contest, because, at a time when amateurs and professionals were increasingly going their separate ways, two hardened professional crews would compete according to rules set and interpreted by amateurs. Six of the eight members of the top crews had raced for the Tyne Championship in coxless boats less than a year previously, with the match rules set out in the articles they had signed. Now they would have to abide by the rules of the Tyne Regatta. A few days before the race, James Percy, Renforth’s old bow man, and a member of the Blenheim crew, smelt a rat, and gave voice to his suspicions at a meeting of the regatta committee.

The Newcastle Daily Chronicle’s description of the meeting explains the issue clearly:

“In answer to a question from James Percy, the committee decided that the coxswain might be carried upon whatever part of the boat the crew thought fit, only he must use the lines and steer, and be six stones in weight; or provided that he is not that weight, he must carry the requisite amount of lead upon his seat only. The question by Percy was prompted by “information received”, that the Taylor-Winship four, who intend to row in the boat they occupied when they won the championship last November, and which, it will be remembered, has no coxswain’s seat, propose to put the steering-boy at the fore end of the craft instead of the aft.”

Newcastle Daily Chronicle Monday July 15^th 1872

The Taylor-Winship crew would row in The Adelaide, and the Blenheim crew would use The Williamson, a Jewitt-built four belonging to South Shields ARC. The Chronicle says the boat was a little small for them, and I think one must assume that the Blenheim crew had not able been able to secure the use of The Renforth for this race.

The first heat for the Taylor-Winship crew was against the Northern Rowing Club four and the positioning of the coxswain in The Adelaide was attracting a great deal of interest from the spectators.

“The object of all the attention was the peculiar mode of carrying the coxswain adopted by the Taylor-Winship crew. Little Wilson, [Thomas] instead of being seated in the usual coxswain’s seat, was accommodated in the forward part close to the bow oar, but looking to the stem of the boat. “The Adelaide” was built, it will be remembered, for use without a coxswain, and the means adopted to comply with the regulation of the committee, it was observed, were such that Taylor touched the coxswain with his back at the finish of nearly every stroke, so that in consequence the general verdict was against the efficiency of the new plan.”

Newcastle Daily Chronicle Saturday 20^th July 1872

The coxswain, Thomas Wilson, was well known to rowing supporters on both Tyne and Thames. In November 1869, he had brilliantly steered Renforth’s champion four to victory over the Thames men twice in matches, first on the Thames and two weeks later on the Tyne. At that time Wilson was aged 14 and weighed in at 54 lbs for the first match and 56 lbs for the second. (Whitehead, I, James Renforth etc. P75 – 80) Now aged 17 he might have reached the minimum 6 stone (84 lbs) weight specified by the committee, but if not, he would have had to make up the weight with lead positioned on his seat. James Taylor was a key member of Renforth’s champion four in 1869 and would have been confident in Wilson’s ability to adapt to his new situation.

Rowing Colour of the Tyne Champion Four 1869. This colour was issued to mark the home and home races of the Tyne Crew, against a London crew, in the autumn of 1869. It features the Newcastle coat of arms and lists the Tyne Crew, (James) Taylor, (Thomas) Winship, (John) Martin, (James) Renforth (Stroke), (Thomas) Wilson (cox). The Tyne men won both races with the boy coxswain Wilson distinguishing himself on each occasion. TWCMS : 2011.3448. Discovery Museum

Whatever the “Chronicle’s” view of the general verdict against the efficiency of the new steering arrangements, the Taylor-Winship crew won their first heat, defeating the Northern Rowing Club easily by four lengths. As was expected they later contested the final against the Blenheim crew. Once more they gained a comfortable victory, winning by a margin of four lengths. On this evidence one wonders why the bowloader didn’t catch on in the 1870s, or at any time after that until it resurfaced in the 1950s.

Maybe it was because the circumstances of its appearance were rather unusual. James Taylor and Thomas Winship both raced regularly in coxless fours in America in 1870 and 1871. Back on their home river they won the Championship of the Tyne in the coxless four, The Adelaide, in November 1871. The Adelaide was at their disposal to use at the Tyne Regatta, but the professional race was for coxed fours. They didn’t want to give up the chance of racing in their winning boat so they adapted it to accommodate the trusted and resourceful coxswain, Thomas Wilson.

There is the possibility that the bowloader did catch on before the 1950s, but was not widely known about. After all, I only came across its appearance on the Tyne in 1872 when it caught my eye while I was researching something else. Does anybody out there know of a reappearance of the racing bowloader before its introduction in Germany in the 1950s?

Bibliography

Clasper, David, Harry Clasper Hero of the North, Gateshead, 1990.

Clasper, David, Rowing: A way of life, The Claspers of Tyneside, Gateshead 2003

Dillon, Peter, The Tyne Oarsmen, Newcastle 1993.

Dodd, Christopher, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, London, 1983.

Dodd, Christopher, The Story of World Rowing, London, 1992

Whitehead, Ian, The Sporting Tyne, A history of professional rowing, Gateshead 2002

Whitehead, Ian, James Renforth of Gateshead, Champion Sculler of the World, Newcastle 2004

Herbert George Columbine VC – by David Weatherstone, Assistant Outreach Officer

Discovery Museum Military History World War 1
Posted by administrator on March 22, 2018 Permalink Comments (1)

The last three and a half years or so have seen many events commemorating the centenary of The Great War and of battles and great events associated with it. The sheer weight of numbers means that many other actions and incidents that are worthy of recognition go without acknowledgement.

One such event that is very dear to us here at Discovery Museum is the action which took place at Hervilly Wood on the Western Front on 22 March 1918, which led to the award of the Victoria Cross to a soldier of the 19^th Hussars, one of the regiments that, in later years, would become The Light Dragoons.

Herbert George Columbine VC

Herbert George Columbine was born in London on 28 November 1893 and wanted to become a soldier from the day in January 1900 that he saw his father depart to South Africa as a member of the Lincolnshire Regiment to fight in the Boer War. The death of his father in action at Silkaatsnek in July of that year seemed, if anything, to make him more determined than ever to join the army, no doubt to his mother’s dismay.

Herbert and his mother moved from London to the pleasant Essex coastal resort of Walton-on-the-Naze when Herbert left school at 12. His resolve to join the army never wavered, however, and at the age of 17 he caught a train to Colchester and joined the 19^th Hussars, probably because they had recently served in the area and he would have seen them. He would not be the first, or the last, young lad to be enticed by the elegant uniforms of the cavalry.

The 19^th Hussars were stationed at Aldershot when Herbert joined them and after basic training he became a machine-gunner, a fateful decision given the events of a few years later. When war was declared on 4 August 1914, Herbert was a soldier of some experience, at least in terms of training and service if not operational experience. The 19^th Hussars mobilised as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and in less than three weeks were dug in at Mons awaiting the arrival of the German Army. He took part in the retreat from Mons, the Race to the Sea and the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915.

In an effort to improve the efficiency of their use of machine guns, which was some way below that of the German Army, the British decided, in 1915, to form the Machine Gun Corps (MGC). Regimental Machine Gun crews were transferred to the new Corps and in June 1916 Herbert was one of seventy men of the 19^th Hussars compulsorily transferred to the MGC.

By March 1918 Herbert had been in action on the Western Front for three and a half years apart from the odd brief period of leave and some training, and he must have been one of the few remaining from the original BEF. The Germans launched a desperate offensive designed to try and finish the war before the entry of the United States tipped the balance conclusively in favour of the Allies. The German attack was launched in the area of St Quentin by the biggest artillery bombardment ever seen and then at 9.35am half a million German soldiers advanced.

By the following day all Allied reserves had been deployed to halt the attack. Herbert and his Squadron moved to a location just south of Hervilly, seven miles north-west of St Quentin. They had not been there long when the German infantry attacked and before long they threatened to overrun the position. Herbert and some comrades moved forward to take command of a machine gun post where the crew had been killed. As the attack continued and casualties mounted Herbert and his two remaining comrades became isolated from the rest of the squadron. Eventually, realising the hopelessness of their situation, Herbert urged his companions to ‘save yourselves, I’ll carry on’. He continued to repel attacks on his own until the Germans brought up air support and bombed his position. Herbert had held up the German advance for four hours and gave the retreating Allies time to regroup and consolidate their defensive positions.

Herbert Columbine has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Pozières Memorial, Panels 93 and 94.

For his actions on 22 March 1918 Private Herbert George Columbine was awarded the Victoria Cross. The citation reads as follows:

‘For the most conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice displayed, when, owing to casualties, Private Columbine took over command of a gun and kept firing it from 9.00 am till 1.00 pm in an isolated position with no wire in front. During this time, wave after wave of the enemy failed to get up to him. Owing to his being attacked by a low flying aeroplane, the enemy at last gained a strong footing in the trench on either side. The position being untenable, he ordered the two remaining men to get away, and though being bombed from either side, he kept his gun firing and inflicted tremendous losses. He was eventually killed by a bomb which blew up him and his gun. He showed throughout the highest valour, determination and self-sacrifice.’

A memorial bust to Herbert was unveiled at Walton-on-the-Naze on Sunday 21 November 1920 and now stands in the Leisure Centre in Walton that bears his name. A statue funded by public subscription and with Dame Judi Dench as patron was erected on Walton sea front and unveiled by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie on 1 August 2014 with the Light Dragoons and the Band of The Royal Signals in attendance. His medals, including his Victoria Cross, are on display at the Essex Regiment Museum in Chelmsford.

I am reminded of a quote about courage, although I can’t quite recall its origin. To paraphrase, it talks about types of courage, be it the red mist adrenalin-fuelled actions of an individual caught up in great events or the ice-cold calculations of an individual who is very aware of the situation, and of the danger to their life, but goes ahead anyway. Each are remarkable in their different ways and it would be crass to differentiate between the two. Herbert’s actions seems to me to be of the second type and it seems extraordinary to the vast majority of us who have never had to test ourselves in such situations that such courage can be displayed.

In 1922 the 15^th and the 19^th Hussars amalgamated to form the 15^th/19^th The King’s Royal Hussars and adopted the motto ‘Merebimur’ which translates from Latin as ‘We shall be Worthy’. I can think of nothing more fitting than this for Herbert Columbine.

I am indebted to the eminent author and military historian Carole McEntee-Taylor for permission to utilise the research and information contained in her outstanding book ‘Herbert Columbine VC’. The book is widely available in bookshops and through her website http://www.carolemctbooks.info/herbert-columbine-vc/ which also contains further information about the Herbert Columbine Statue project and the author’s other works.

Can looking closely at paintings and some of an artist’s archival material improve a primary pupil’s written response to a subject? By Julie Ballands, Assistant Learning Officer, Laing Art Gallery

Collections & Objects Education Laing Art Gallery World War 1
Posted by administrator on March 13, 2018 Permalink Leave a comment

This was the enquiry we explored at the Laing Art Gallery. We focussed on Paul Nash’s WWI paintings, depicting scenes from the front line, and engaged local writer James Whitman to work with the Year 5 classes from three local primary schools: Carville Primary School in Wallsend; Walkergate Primary School; and Hotspur Primary School in Newcastle.

As part of the project, we transcribed letters held by Tate Archive written by Paul Nash to his wife and used these to help inform themes for the project. Paul Nash had initially signed up and served on the Western Front as a soldier, but after a period back at home injured, he returned to France as an official war artist. This time around he was able to stay in safer officer class surroundings further back from the front line. During his time away from the war, his former colleagues had all been killed and this deeply affected him and his views on the war. Coupled with being a landscape artist who was very in tune with his surroundings, he found the contrast of the ‘before and after’ landscapes in France hard to come to terms with.

The lovely weather of the last few days has been even harder to bear. We have been outdoors a good deal suddenly and Sunday I spent making drawings in the country here which is really attractive when one has time to explore. About the bunk cellandines are gleaming, I have found wild periwinkles in the copse and today a fat buds of the king cups were bursting in the Marshes near the railway. The birds everywhere make the country just like ‘real’ spring… We live carelessly enough here, but even the least emotional of men is moved at the beauty of these days and sighs from the bottom of his heart to hear the guns a few miles away.

I have just returned last night from a visit to Brigade H.Q. up the line and I shall not forget it as long as I live. I have seen the most frightful nightmare of a country ever conceived by Dante or Poe – unspeakable, utterly indescribable. In the 15 drawings I made I may give you some vague idea of its horror, but only by being in it and of it can only make you sense of its dreadful nature and what men in France have to face…… Sunset and sunrise are blasphemous mockeries to man. Only the black rain out of the bruised and swollen clouds on this the bitter black of night is fit atmosphere in such a land. The rain drives on, the stinking mud becomes more evil yellow, the shell holes fill up with green white water, the roads and tracks are covered in inches of slime, the black dying trees ooze and sweat and the shells never cease. This is where I plunge overhead tearing away. The rotting tree stumps breaking the plank roads, striking down horses and mules, annihilating, maiming, maddening, they plunge into the grave, and cast up on it the poor dead. It is unspeakable, godless, hopeless.

Our writer James Whitman took these themes and, along with studying Paul Nash’s WW1 paintings, devised schools workshops focussing on:

the concept Genus Loci – the spirit of a place – and how that might change and mutate when something bad happened to it
writing poetry informed by spending time in the gallery looking at the paintings, sketching and writing spidergrams
a painting activity exploring the depiction of mood with the use of colour

The approach to working with each school was slightly different, depending on the number of Year 5 classes in the school and how long they were able to spend on a visit to the gallery. This gave us the opportunity to tweak and try out slightly different activities. Each class spent at least half a day at the Laing in the Paul Nash exhibition and in our learning spaces.

In the gallery, the paintings were used as a stimulus to help increase the children’s vocabulary and generate creative content to enhance their poetic writing. The children were asked to sit in front of a painting and create spidergrams in response to them, working into groups of words and expanding on them (see photo to the left). It seemed that this did increase the depth of the adjectives the children were using to describe the war-torn landscapes and the imagined experiences of the people in it. It was also apparent that some children preferred to draw a sketch first and then annotate it and that this seemed to help them to better articulate their written work.

The children then got a chance to create lines of poetry from words they had written in the gallery. These were either brought together a line at a time as whole class poems, or were written into an individual poetry zine.

In the in-school sessions, the children worked with the concept of genius loci – the spirit of a place. They were led through a process of re-imagining places experiencing change as characters – drawing them initially and then writing about them.

Children from Hotspur Primary School working on their spidergrams in the gallery

Wall

by Carville Primary School Year 5

A wall between peace and destruction
White smoke trails and one black flourish
Metal bits of plane litter the sea.

Soldiers’ sad faces
Moonlight sparkles above
Total mayhem and destruction,
Ruin and rubble everywhere

Trees with no leaves rot in the ground
The dead linger behind,
Their crashed green planes with broken wings

Litter the ground.

Poetry Zines by Hotspur Primary School

The three participating schools all gathered at the Laing for a final event where they read their poems in front of the Paul Nash paintings that inspired them and got the chance to hear each other’s work. Sarah Richardson, the exhibition’s curator was there to present each class with books about The Laing Art Gallery to take back to their schools.

Visual literacy and literacy are very much linked. They can both be concerned with telling stories and creating mood. Initial observations from the project would suggest that using the visual stimulus of the Paul Nash paintings increased the vocabulary of the children when writing in about life on the frontline during WWI.

Thanks to The Heritage Lottery Fund, funded by National Lottery players, our learning team were able to work with a writer and the fantastic Paul Nash exhibition to complete this work. Lottery funding also enabled these local school children to learn more about the effects of the First World War.

The development of the racing shell: Tyne Innovations Part 1 – by Ian Whitehead

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The impetus for this post was provided by a chance meeting at Tyne Rowing Club. Phil Kite, one of the club members, was explaining the thinking behind his plan for a Tyne crew to take on the Talisker Atlantic Challenge in 2018. Phil told me that he wanted Team Tyne Innovation to demonstrate that the pioneering spirit of the North East is still very much alive by incorporating innovative products and services developed by regional businesses and universities. (1)

For my part, I couldn’t resist telling Phil how, in the 19^th century, Tyne boatbuilders and oarsmen were also innovators, and were a major influence on the development of the racing shell. Sadly, very few people today are aware of the importance of the North East region’s contribution to the sport of rowing. The Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums Collections contain an interesting group of objects that illustrate that story, so what better time to bring these to the attention of a wider audience through a blog post. Thus, the innovators of today can be seen as the inheritors of a tradition stretching back almost two hundred years.

It all turned out to be a rather longer tale than even I expected so it has been split into two parts. Part 1 covers the outrigger, the bringing inboard of the keel, single strake (shell) construction, and the refinement of foot steering for coxless pairs and fours. Part 2 will deal with the development of the sliding stroke, the sliding seat and what seems to me might be the first bowloader coxed boat.

This race took place in September 1864 in very rough conditions. At the first attempt, on September 5th, Chambers’ boat was holed and the race was stopped when his scull began to sink. The race was rowed again the next day and this time Bob Chambers won.
TWCMS : G1197 (Shipley Art Gallery)

As Britain awaited the coronation of George IV, the leading citizens of Tyneside were casting around for a fitting way to mark the occasion. They agreed to promote a boat race on the River Tyne between the watermen of the settlements along its banks. The race would take place on Coronation Day, 19^th July 1821, with cash prizes being awarded to the first four crews home: the brethren of Trinity House offered an extra prize of a blue silk flag for the winner.

Thirteen boats were entered but, when the day came, there was no race. Twelve of the crews refused to take part because the North Shields boat, the Experiment, had been built specially for the race, whereas the rest were work boats, used daily on the river. The Coronation Committee awarded the first prize to the Experiment, while Trinity House decided that the race was null. A new date, 1^st August, the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile, was fixed for a contest for the boats that had been entered, except for the Experiment. Six boats started the rearranged race, with the Stella boat, the Laurel Leaf, winning the blue flag, and the first three boats home picking up the three cash prizes which had not been awarded on Coronation Day. (2) At the time the Laurel Leaf was regarded as a very fast boat, but her dimensions: length a little over 30 feet, breadth 6 feet, and height 30 inches, show how far things needed to progress before the racing boats for which the Tyne became famous would appear. (3)

Thus began the history of official boat racing on the River Tyne. Innovation in boat design and argument accompanied the first race: a pattern that was to be repeated over the following fifty years. Those years would create a golden age of rowing on the Tyne. At the start the men of the Tyne were striving to be able to compete against the best – the Thames watermen. But by 1870, greatly assisted by improvements in boat design and construction pioneered and developed by the boat builders of their native river, they were recognised as being the best in the world.

The 1821 North Shields boat the Experiment was clearly different from its contemporary foy boats, cobles and gigs from other localities along the river, but how it differed we do not know. However, the Tyne soon became the scene of many of the changes in design, construction and even rowing technique which led to the transformation of the work boat into the racing shell.

It is rare in life that somebody invents something that is both completely new and a perfect embodiment of their pioneering thought. Inventions are most often the practical application of an idea which may have been imperfectly executed by somebody else. This seems to be particularly true of boat design. It is not easy to pinpoint who first thought of a particular design change, but the Tyne has strong claims to the successful development of the outrigger, the bringing inboard of the keel, single strake (shell) construction and the refinement of foot steering for coxless pairs and fours. Despite a common local misapprehension, the sliding seat was not invented on Tyneside. But the sliding stroke had its origins on the northern river, which perhaps confused the issue, and a version of the successful American pattern of sliding seat had its victorious European debut in an important race on the Tyne. There is at least a moral claim of a Tyne component in the development and swift adoption of the sliding seat by the rowing world and so I have dealt with it here, without any intention of claiming the sliding seat itself as a Tyne innovation.

Finally, I will explore how and why the Tyne Champion four adapted their coxless four craft to take part in a coxed four race for professionals at the 1872 Tyne Regatta to produce what seems to have been the first bowloader coxed boat.

The Outrigger

The outrigger made its first appearance on the Tyne in 1828, fitted to a sculling boat, Diamond, for a race against Fly of Scotswood. A local boat builder by the name of Ridley built the wooden structure to the design of Anthony Brown of Ouseburn. In the same year Frank Emmet of Dent’s Hole on the Tyne produced a similar design. Two years later his Eagle made use of iron outriggers. Further attempts were made to develop the idea since a successful outrigger would enable racing boats to be made narrower and consequently lighter. Boats rowed on the gunwhale required sufficient beam (width) to enable an oarsman to apply adequate leverage to his oar. The fitting of outriggers altered the relationship between beam and leverage.

Outrigger on a model of a racing four by Matthew Taylor, Newcastle 1855
TWCMS : 1999.215 Scale: 1:12 (Discovery Museum)

In the early 1840s Harry Clasper and his brothers were racing in St Agnes, a four- oared boat, fitted with outriggers, which had been built by John Dobson of Hillgate, Gateshead. The Claspers became so successful in their races against other Tyne crews that Harry Clasper was convinced that they could take on the best of the Thames watermen.

A challenge was sent to London and the Thames men came north, encouraged to make the journey by the payment of expenses. The race was rowed over a five mile course from the 1781 Tyne Bridge to Lemington on 16^th July 1842 for a stake of £150 a side. The Thames men were rowing on the gunwhale which meant that their boat was beamier than the St Agnes. But their boat was also considerably lighter; so much so that local opinion held that the London craft would prove too flimsy for the job in hand. The result of the race was an embarrassment for the Tyne crew with the Londoners winning easily.

Harry Clasper’s view of the loss was succinctly put in a letter to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle many years later in 1866.

“…… For I can prove that the outriggers were no use till I made the boats to suit them, nor was our old boat the St Agnes, for she was beat easy when we pulled the London boat on the Tyne;”

(Newcastle Daily Chronicle 22^nd June 1866)

Despite the advantage of a considerably narrower hull, (29 inches as against 40 inches) the St Agnes was much more heavily-built than her London rival, weighing in at an estimated 224 lbs, fully 60% more than the Thames craft.

Harry had already starting building a new four-oared boat, The Five Brothers, with the help of finance from his wife, Susannah. Susannah came from the wealthy ironworks-owning Hawks family, but presumably also believed that her husband’s new boat was worthy of investment.

The appearance of The Five Brothers at the Thames Regatta in June 1844 was probably the moment when the outrigger reached a stage of development such that the rowing community recognised that this would be the future. The boat’s looks were the object of much admiration, with the five strake mahogany hull being French polished rather than being given the usual treatment of black lead (powdered graphite) and grease. At 168 lbs she was still heavier than the very finely built London boats, but now only by about 20%. The Claspers won the £50 prize and got very close to carrying off the £100 prize awarded to the winners of the top fours race. (4)

Advertisement from a Newcastle Trade Directory c 1861

Harry Clasper had persevered with the outrigger and refined boat design to suit the innovation until all recognised that his boats were faster than those rowed on the gunwhale. Thereafter Harry always claimed in his advertising literature that he was “the inventor of the present outrigger”, which was his way of saying that he had taken a previously impractical device and developed it until it worked successfully.

The Inboard Keel

While Harry Clasper was refining the design of the narrow, outrigger hull to reduce its weight, there were already signs that the need to reduce surface resistance (skin friction) was beginning to be understood. Although The Five Brothers had been planked up with five mahogany strakes each side of an external keel, the French polishing of the hull shows that Harry was looking for as smooth a finish to the underwater surface of the boat as he could achieve. The obvious next step was to smooth the hull still further, by moving the keel inboard and planking with a single strake, but who was the first to make that step is a matter of some debate.

Smooth hull of a model of a racing four by Matthew Taylor, Newcastle 1855. TWCMS : 1999.215

It has been claimed that the Londoner, Bill Pocock, was the first to build a keel-less boat but it is more generally accepted that the first keel-less boat came from the Tyne. This is all well and good, until one looks further into it, to find that three highly regarded Tyne boat builders, Harry Clasper, Robert Jewitt, and Matthew Taylor all have claims to have built the first keel-less boat!

Harry Clasper

Harry Clasper was encouraged by the success he achieved with his light, narrow-hulled outrigger, The Five Brothers, but he certainly was not satisfied. He would remain active as a professional oarsman for many years and his interest in developing racing boat design helped both his rowing career and his boatbuilding business. For his sculling match with Coombes on the Tyne in December 1844 he built a skiff (single scull) with a smooth hull, which had only one strake each side of the inboard keel.

“He (Clasper) has built himself a beautiful mahogany skiff, a perfect model in form, almost a toy, more fit as an ornament for a parlour than a boat to row in.”

(Newcastle Weekly Journal 14^th December 1844)

Harry Clasper, probably shown in the boat he built to race against Coombes in December 1844

The race took place on the 18^th December but soon after the start Harry began to veer off towards the Newcastle bank because he was pulling too hard with his right- hand scull. After fouling a moored keel (lighter) on the northern side of the course, he found it difficult to get back on terms, and Coombes won comfortably by five or six lengths. A rematch was suggested for the following Monday, but in the event Coombes’ backers forfeited the £20 they had put down as the first instalment of the stake. In 1866 a newspaper review of Tyne oarsmen over the years, looking back at this contest, claimed that this was because Harry’s boat was better than Coombes’ old fashioned riggerless craft. Harry’s boat was still heavier than the Londoner’s, but only by a few pounds, and it may well be that despite his less polished technique Harry would have triumphed in the rematch, barring any further tangles with keels! Now the outrigger had been combined with lighter, one strake construction and an inboard keel, Harry’s boat was recognisably similar to today’s single sculls. (5)

Harry’s next four-oared boat, the Lord Ravensworth, was a further refinement and was also built with one strake a side. Using this boat the Claspers were victorious in the Thames Regatta of 1845, winning the top prize of £100. Harry’s boats in future would always be built this way, and over the next twenty years his boats were prominent at regattas all over the country. Many years later Harry’s son Jack (John Hawks) claimed in a letter that he steered a four to victory at the Thames Regatta of 1849 in which they, “used the same smooth-bottomed boats as are in use now”. (Dodd, The Story of World Rowing P75) If John Hawks Clasper remembered rightly then Harry Clasper’s claim to this change in construction is strong, since the other favourite, Matthew Taylor, did not bring the keel inboard until 1854. But that argument does not hold good in considering Robert Jewitt’s claim, since he declared he had built three boats with an inboard keel before December 1844.

Robert Jewitt

Robert Jewitt of Dunston on Tyne was an extremely popular builder of racing boats, with successful customers, both professional and amateur, on Thames and Tyne. He was particularly well known for the boats he built for James Renforth and his crews from 1868 to 1871, but he had established his reputation at a much earlier date. He was mentioned by the Newcastle Daily Chronicle as being worthy of special notice, together with Harry Clasper and Matthew Taylor, in 1859. The newspaper reported that,

“the Londoners seem to think that they (Jewitt and Taylor) have the only skiffs able to contend against Clasper,”

(Newcastle Daily Chronicle July 30^th 1859)

However, Jewitt was active as a boat builder well before 1859. An illuminating, but bad-tempered, exchange of letters with Harry Clasper in the columns of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle in June 1866 indicates that Jewitt began building boats in 1843.

Jewitt had written a letter responding to a piece in the Chronicle by “STROKE”, and Clasper had taken Jewitt’s remarks to be a criticism of him (Clasper) and responded angrily, complaining that Jewitt and all other builders had copied from him. (6)

Clasper v Jewitt – Harry Clasper’s first letter to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle (12/06/1866) in response to Robert Jewitt

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find either STROKE’s piece or Jewitt’s first letter, to which Clasper took such exception. Jewitt replied, saying that he had been building boats for 23 years, and claimed that he had been the first to build boats with one strake from keel to gunwhale. He went on to say that he had built three boats on this principle before Clasper built his first, the single scull built for his race with Coombes on 18^th December 1844. Jewitt also claimed that Clasper had copied the single strake idea from him. (7)

Clasper v Jewitt – Robert Jewitt’s letter to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle (18/06/1866) replying to Harry Clasper’s first letter.

Clasper responded again, repeating his claims that Jewitt, along with others, had copied from him. However, in this second letter, the two boats Clasper references to back up his claim, the Lord Ravensworth, (1845) and the skiff he used to race against Coombes, (1844) were both built after the period when Jewitt claimed he had built three single strake boats. It is interesting that Clasper’s argument doesn’t refute Jewitt’s claim, but possibly his annoyance with Jewitt got in the way of delivering a more convincing response. (8)

Clasper v Jewitt – Harry Clasper has the last word, Newcastle Daily Chronicle, (22/06/1866) and the Editor closes the correspondence.

It is impossible to say who was right. The Editor of the Chronicle saw no future in continuing the argument and declared the correspondence closed after Clasper’s second letter was published. After the elapse of so much time the dispute can hardly be settled, but at the time nobody cast doubt on Jewitt’s claim that he was building boats in 1843. He could have built a boat on the single strake principle before Clasper built his boat to race Coombes in 1844, but the only evidence seems to be the claim he made in his letter of June 18^th 1866.

Matthew Taylor

Inscription on the model of the Matthew Taylor four, dating it to March 12th 1855 together with his name and Newcastle location. TWCMS : 1999.215

Matthew (Matt) Taylor was a ship’s carpenter and a member of the well-known Taylor family of Tyne rowers. As well as pursuing a successful career as an oarsman and a coach, he also became a renowned boat builder. He built a smooth-bottomed four in 1854 in which the keel was brought inboard for the Royal Chester Rowing Club when he was working as the club’s trainer. In 1855 the club used the boat at Henley to win the Stewards’ Challenge Cup, and in 1856 Taylor built an inboard-keeled eight with which the club was again successful at Henley. This is really Taylor’s claim on the inboard keel: that he was the first to build an eight without an external keel. The principle seems to have been established in fours and sculls, perhaps by Harry Clasper, but possibly by Robert Jewitt, when Matt Taylor was only 15 or 16 years of age, and well before he gained a reputation for building boats with inboard keels.

Interior of Matthew Taylor model – showing the internal keel and also the footboard and the canted seat arrangement. TWCMS : 1999.215

Taylor’s most important contribution to the development of racing boat design was in his recognition that longer did not necessarily mean faster. His eights were 55 feet long, about ten feet shorter than the keeled eights of the time. They were also beamier than contemporary craft, but the great reduction in length resulted in a lighter boat with less surface in contact with the water and therefore with less skin friction. His boats were also shaped rather differently with the maximum beam being forward of the midships section.

Overhead view of Matthew Taylor model – The bow is at the right of the image and this view shows that the hull shape is rather fuller forward of amidships than it is aft. TWCMS : 1999.215

Matt Taylor was the most fashionable builder of his time, building boats for Oxford and Cambridge, sometimes, as in 1859, for both in the same year. In 1857, when both universities had agreed that only amateur coaches could be employed, Taylor was engaged by Oxford, who had commissioned him to build a boat for them. Obviously, they could not admit that he was coaching them and they needed to come up with a suitable reason for retaining his services. The Oxford President, Lonsdale, wrote of the arrangement,

“We employed him not to instruct us in the art of rowing, but to show us the proper way to send his boat along as quickly as possible.” (Dodd, The Story of World Rowing P73)

University Boat Race historians do not record whether or not Lonsdale went on to enjoy a career in politics!

Foot Steering

In July 1867, a crew made up of three fishermen and a lighthouse keeper from St. John, New Brunswick, in Canada, had caused a stir when they appeared at the Paris Regatta rowing a foot-steered coxless four. They won the amateur race against a background of concern, in Britain at least, as to whether or not they ought to have been classified as amateurs. The professional race was won by the Tyne Champion Four, which included James Taylor, a younger brother of Matt Taylor, the boatbuilder, from the famous rowing family of Ouseburn.

The St John crew’s boat was much heavier than a Tyne racing shell, but against amateurs the Canadians had put up an impressive performance. They rowed at a very high rating, used no foot straps and had no buttons on their oars. These features impressed the Tynesiders not at all, but foot steering was an idea that James Taylor saw would be worth developing further. In January 1869, when Taylor teamed up with the sculling champion James Renforth for a pairs race on the Tyne, he realised that adding foot-steering to their boat would greatly improve their chances of steering a true course up river.

Photograph of James Taylor 1871 – James was a younger brother of the boatbuilder Matthew Taylor. His usual rowing weight was around 10 stone 7 pounds.

Renforth was a stone heavier than Taylor and an immensely powerful oarsman. Fitting foot-steering enabled Taylor to compensate for the imbalance of power between the two men without asking Renforth to ease his stroke.

“Taylor has adopted a rudder to the boat in which they row which he works by means of his feet, and he is thus enable to secure a certainty of steerage rare indeed in pair-oar races.”

Taylor and Renforth easily won the race, with near-perfect steering from the bow seat by Taylor adding to the margin of their victory. (9)

In England, fours races continued with coxes, largely because the London crews refused to dispense with them, but in 1870, when Renforth led a four to race against the St. John crew in Canada, the match was made in coxless fours. The correspondent of the Toronto Daily Globe saw this as an advantage to the Canadians since the Tyne men had no previous experience of racing in a coxless four.

The race was to take place at Lachine, near Montreal. While the Tyne crew were training on the course, James Taylor became dissatisfied with the design of the steering apparatus. He was steering with his feet from the bow seat, but felt that the working of the apparatus interfered with the free action of his feet. It is not made clear how exactly the feet were hampered, but it seems likely that the bow man’s ability to drive off the footboard was restricted. I would suggest that the controlling device was some sort of fore and aft pedal. The St. John crew rowed a fast, arm stroke so this was not significant for them, but the Tyne crews used their feet a great deal in executing their sliding stroke. The bow man probably had to restrict his leg drive in order to maintain a steady course.

Model of a pair oar c1880 with foot steering fitted for use by the rower in the bow seat. This model has two footed steering controlled by a lever which sits between the feet. The long slides and seats running on wheels suggest that this model was made a few years later than the first appearance of sliding seats on the Tyne in 1871. Tyne Rowing Club. Scale 1:12

Taylor designed a semi-lunar lever, working freely on a pivot, that moved side to side across the footboard and therefore allowed him to drive his feet off the board without inadvertently altering course. Fortunately for the Tynesiders there was a large body of workers at the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway workshops who had been recruited from Northumberland and Durham. They were delighted to be of assistance and quickly manufactured the new apparatus to Taylor’s design. Renforth’s crew gained an easy victory over the Canadians, rowing with their usual, long, fluid stroke, but also able to benefit from accurate foot steering. (10) It seems to me that the Tyne Rowing Club pair oar model has this type of foot steering fitted to it.

A further refinement seems to have been made when two professional fours raced for the Championship of the Tyne on 22^nd November 1871. Most of the details of this race can be found in the following section on the sliding seat, since this was the first outing for sliding seats on the Tyne. However, following the experience of both crews in racing without coxes in America earlier in the year, this race was also contested in coxless fours.

All the previous accounts of steering apparatus used in coxless boats referred to steering with the feet, plural. The account of the race published in the Chronicle the following day described something new.

“The steering apparatus is the invention of Mr. Thos. Swaddle, foreman to Mr. Jewett, and its novelty consists in the fixing and arrangement of the lever, which is worked with one foot only, whilst the other is strapped in the usual manner.”

(Newcastle Daily Chronicle Thursday 23^rd November 1871)

This arrangement allowed the bow man to use the strapped foot to drive off the footboard exactly as he would have done before. This is much the same arrangement as in use in coxless boats today. Incidentally, this is the Thomas Swaddle who a few years later went into partnership with William Winship to build famous racing boats from their yard near the Scotswood Bridge.

In Part 2 I will explore how the sliding stroke on a fixed seat pioneered on the Tyne developed into a viable sliding seat in North America and also what seems to be a first, and successful, outing for a bowloading coxed four in 1872.

Part 1 – References

See the team’s website, https://www.teamtyneinnovation.com/ and also the challenge they are taking on, https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/

One of the innovative products Team Tyne are using on their boat is, Intersleek 1100SR Foul Release paint, developed and manufactured by International Paints (Akzo Nobel) at their plant in Felling. This paint already has a place in the Tyne & Wear Collections and was chosen in 2013 as one of 100 objects that tell the History of the North East. http://www.100objectsne.co.uk/objects/view/24

Newcastle Daily Chronicle (NDC) Sept. 20^th 1870
NDC July 30^th 1859
NDC 15^th February 1866
Newcastle Weekly Journal (NWJ) 21^st December 1844, NDC 15^th February 1866
NDC June 12^th 1866
NDC Monday June 18^th 1866
NDC Friday 22^nd June 1866
NDC 26^th January 1869
NDC September 28^th 1870

Bibliography

Clasper, David, Harry Clasper Hero of the North, Gateshead, 1990

Clasper, David, Rowing: A way of life, The Claspers of Tyneside, Gateshead 2003

Dillon, Peter, The Tyne Oarsmen, Newcastle 1993

Dodd, Christopher, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, London, 1983.

Dodd, Christopher, The Story of World Rowing, London, 1992

Waters, Balch, The Annual Illustrated Catalogue and Oarsman’s Manual for 1871, Troy, New York, 1871

Whitehead, Ian, The Sporting Tyne, A history of professional rowing, Gateshead 2002

Whitehead, Ian, James Renforth of Gateshead, Champion Sculler of the World, Newcastle 2004

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums Blog

Defending the Fort

Herbert George Columbine VC – by David Weatherstone, Assistant Outreach Officer

Can looking closely at paintings and some of an artist’s archival material improve a primary pupil’s written response to a subject? By Julie Ballands, Assistant Learning Officer, Laing Art Gallery

The development of the racing shell: Tyne Innovations Part 1 – by Ian Whitehead

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