First and Third Trinity Boat Club - History

History

In the nineteenth century the various Trinity boat clubs were very strong and regularly won events in Cambridge, at various regattas around the country, notably the Henley Royal Regatta, and regularly contributed rowers to the Cambridge boat for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Indeed in the 1849 Boat Race, all members of the crew were from Trinity, seven from Third Trinity and two, the cox included, from First Trinity. Boats from the three clubs could often be found at, or near, the top of the Bumps and they sometimes combined their resources in races against the rest of the University.

In 1876 Second Trinity was disbanded due to insufficient members. However, a legend claims that during the Bumps in that year, the rowers of Trinity's arch-rivals, St John's College, attached a sword to the front of one of their boats such that if they successfully bumped the boat in front (which turned out to be one of Second Trinity's), it would be holed and sink. The plan supposedly worked in the sense that the Trinity boat did sink, but in the process the sword also hit and killed Second Trinity's cox, which of course wasn't intended So the legend claims that this is the reason why Second Trinity Boat Club was dissolved, and why St. John's College is no longer allowed a boat club under its own name. Though a wonderful legend, there is no traceable record of a crew from St. John's attaching a sword to their bow, and while a St John's College Boat Club was disbanded in 1876, the original boat club at St. John's was the Lady Margaret Boat Club. However, a somewhat similar incident occurred in 1888, 12 years after the dissolution of Second Trinity, after which bow balls became mandatory. In his History of the First Trinity Boat Club, Walter Rouse Ball notes: " The third day was the occasion of a sad tragedy. Clare bumped Queens', and drew into the bank by Grassy. Behind these boats was the Trinity Hall third boat. This, instead of rounding First Post Corner, ran, by some mishap, across the river, and the nose of the boat struck number 4 in the Clare boat just over his heart, killing him on the spot. The further races were at once stopped. Since this dreadful incident small india-rubber knobs have been fixed on the bows of all the racing boats". The more prosaic explanation for 2nd Trinity's demise is that membership was restricted to Theology scholars, which over time proved to be an unreliable source of oarsmen.

In the twentieth century the clubs remained competitive and continued to achieve success in various events. The 2nd World War forced the 2 clubs to combine resources and after the war they formally merged in order to remain competitive with the now larger boat clubs of other colleges. In the same year First and Third won the Visitors' Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta and the following year won the Ladies' Challenge Plate. They repeated this feat by winning the Ladies Plate again in 1954 and 1967 which was the last year that a college crew from either Cambridge or Oxford has won the event. The difference in the standard of rowing between Oxbridge colleges and non-University clubs has changed greatly over the twentieth century, possibly due to standards within college clubs falling or to the quality of rowing in other clubs improving, but probably a combination of the two. For example First and Third, like all other Oxbridge college crews, now have difficulty achieving a standard of rowing to even qualify for events at the Henley Royal Regatta, let alone to win these events. In spite of this, rowing within Cambridge remains popular and the Bumps, the main inter-college event, see well over a thousand students competing, typically around a hundred from Trinity.