150 years of the THAMES SAILING CLUB

The formation of TSC represented something of a social revolution in Victorian Britain as the rising middle class started to enjoy the sport of kings

- MARK LAITY

‘This Club is established to encourage the sailing of small boats on the Thames...’

With that simple statement in its first yearbook, Thames Sailing Club (TSC) set out its cleara intent – one it has pursued for 150 years.

The club has often been a trailblazer. In 1870 yachting was largely a rich man’s pursuit, in large yachts in exclusive clubs on the coast or estuary. But a growing middle class now had more money for pleasure and, just as important, more leisure time to go with it. They still had to work for a living and rarely had second homes on the coast, but in the growing Thameside suburbs, they had a conveniently close river and could commission boats to fit their budget.

So, when that group of gentlemen gathered to launch TSC that year, they represented (although they would not have seen it that way) part of a social revolution – the transformation of Victorian Britain. Surbiton, once known as the Queen of the Suburbs, was a fitting place to see the rising middle-class bring a sport of kings and nobility to wider society.

Downriver the Royal Canoe Club was formed in 1866, but TSC is Britain’s oldest surviving river sailing club and one of the oldest sailing clubs in Britain. At that time small sailing boats were most often regarded in somewhat patronising terms by journals such as The Yachtsman, but that mattered little to the founders, who just wanted to get out on the water and race.