An Oar-Some Achievement

Lancaster’s John O’Gaunt Rowing Club has a remarkable 175 years of history – including the time one crew greased their shorts to make them go faster!

- Martin Pilkington

AT a Sunday morning training and coaching session, lightweight craft are manhandled into the water from an impressive boathouse beside the Lune. Enthusiastic juniors, and some not so junior, scull away from the bank, heading upriver towards the 18th century aqueduct. It is a scene observers 175 years ago would have found fairly familiar.

One of the city’s most celebrated Victorian figures, architect Edmund Sharpe, was the moving force behind what was originally the Lancaster Rowing Club, one of the oldest in Britain. ‘He came here in the 1830s and started his architectural practice, and was part of a group that established a cricket club. On September 23rd 1842 at a meeting to disband the cricket club, Sharpe moved to form a rowing club in its place,’ explains Mike Pugh, its current chairman. ‘Sharpe was our first captain, and the two architects forever linked with him, Paley and Austin, both served in that role shortly afterwards.’ Sharpe even sold the club two of his own boats to get it started.

The organisation thrived until scandal hit in 1865. ‘A Royal Commission found many members of the club were involved in a general election bribery case,’ says Mike. ‘This led to the club splitting along political lines – the Tories kept the old name, and the Liberals created the John O’Gaunt.’ They didn’t re-unite until the 1930s, when hard times drove the Lancaster section to merge with their rivals.