In 1860, the City of London Rowing Club was founded at Putney by a small group of men, chiefly clerks and salesmen in the city rag trade. They based themselves at Simmons Boathouse and a room at the Red Lion Hotel and their initial aim was the modest one of ‘organised pleasure or exercise rowing’. It would be 1864 (by which time the club’s name had been changed to Thames Rowing Club) before a growing interest in competition led to the club’s first recorded win, in a race against the Excelsior Boat Club of Greenwich.

But from these small beginnings would grow one of the largest and most successful rowing clubs in Britain.

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.’ 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. With the completion of a spacious clubhouse on Putney Embankment in 1879, Thames was established as a mainstay of amateur rowing.

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:

From 1866, Thames organised cross-country races around Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park 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 Thames Hare & Hounds, the first cross-country club, which would itself go on to an illustrious history and an important role in the birth of the Amateur Athletics Association.

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 great coach Steve Fairbairn wound it up because of the damage caused to oarsmen’s hands.

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, Thames reached new heights, winning four events at Henley in both 1928 and 1929, something which no one club has replicated in the 20th century.

At the same time, Thames was home to Britain’s greatest ever single sculler. Jack Beresford 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.

In the decades following the Second World War, like many British clubs Thames struggled to cope with the increasing professionalisation of international rowing coupled with waves of social change. The Club reached a low ebb in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with its role and future very much in doubt.

Then, in 1972 Thames became one of the first British rowing clubs to admit women. It rapidly became the powerhouse of women's rowing, a position it retains to this day - unmatched by any other club in Britain, perhaps in the world. Thames women have represented Great Britain at every Olympic Games since Los Angeles, and in both 2000 and 2004 they returned with medals. Since the founding of Henley Women's Regatta in 1987, the Club has won there 39 times.

Meanwhile, over the past 25 years the club has steadily returned to prominence in men’s rowing, culminating in a highly emotional win in the Wyfold Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 2003 – 133 years after Thames first came to prominence by winning the very same trophy. With its sesquicentenary approaching, Thames Rowing Club is in rude health.

Recent international medals

Year	Regatta	Event	Name	Result
1998	World Championships	Women's Double Scull	Miriam Batten	Gold
1998	World Championships	Women's Coxless Pair	Dot Blackie	Silver
2000	Olympic Games	Women's Quadruple Scull	Miriam Batten	Silver
2000	Olympic Games	Women's Quadruple Scull	Guin Batten	Silver
2002	World Championships	Lightweight Women's Coxless Pair	Leonie Barron	Gold
2004	Olympic Games	Women's Double Scull	Elise Laverick	Bronze
2004	World Under-23 Regatta	Women's Coxless Four	Alison Knowles	Gold
2004	World Under-23 Regatta	Women's Coxless Four	Beth Rodford	Gold