Tuesday July 29th 1845 was marked by an event which I feel sure will be remembered, after what passed last year, with sincere pleasure by every Westminster as long as the School shall exist. I mean the Boat Race between Eton & Westminster which took place on that day & terminated in favour of the latter by 65 seconds. The following account may perhaps be admissible here.<\/p>\n
At 111\/2 A.M the \u201cEcho\u201d Steamer left Chandler\u2019s Pier filled with the friends of either Crew & reached its destination Barker\u2019s Rails nr Kew Bridge at 11\/2 P.M or rather more, from which place we were to start & after a little waiting the Etonian Crew also arrived: Burton Sr then tossed up with Luttrell Sr (the captain of the Eton Boats) for choice of stations which Westr. won & took the Surrey side of the River. Mr. Selwyn an old Etonian kindly officiated as umpire: & on the word \u201coff\u201d being given we started in such an uneven manner that the Etonians led by more than a length before we were steady. But in \u00bc of a mile we were oar & oar; in \u00bd a mile clean ahead; & continuing, at most without an effort, to draw ahead lost sight of them round the turn before Hammersmith Bridge. We then rowed easily down the Hammersmith Reach continually gaining ground; spurted into Putney passing the Leander & or own Watermen\u2019s Eights; & went under the Bridge amidst the warmest cheering ahead by more than a length of any Boat that rowed the distance.<\/p>\n
The course was nearly 5 miles; the time 27 \u00bc (which we could have lessened) & we were victorious by 65 seconds or something like 40 or 50 Boat\u2019s lengths. Our crews were<\/p>\n
Preston
\nWilliams
\nBedford
\nWest
\nGoodenough
\nMilman
\nShiffner
\nRich (Stroke)<\/p>\n
Burton<\/p>\n
For further particulars see Water Ledger. I may as well here remark that W.G. Green who was our Head of the Water as I had not time to attend to it was very unfavourably and it is generally thought unfairly rejected from the Racing Crew & his place supplied by Williams who if he was stronger was certainly deficient in style. Our training was strict & our condition extremely good this year, we had continued to improve ourselves for six weeks & before we actually received a Challenge.<\/p>\n
Dr Williamson who behaved extremely well throughout, & was extremely generous towards us as far as he was concerned followed the Race this year together with many other Old Westminsters on Horseback, by the Towing Path & returned I am happy to say extraordinarily satisfied with the result of our efforts.<\/p>\n
Thus ended the most complete victory of the Championship of the Universe as far as regards rowing in Schools that was ever obtained by our crew over another. And I think I may, from personal experience, add, one of the least distressing spurts we ever had during the whole course of training. The betting before we started was 5 to 1 having risen from even wagers.<\/p>\n
Joseph Preston Prin. Opp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday July 29th 1845 was marked by an event which I feel sure will be remembered, after what passed last year, with sincere pleasure by every Westminster as long as the School shall exist. I mean the Boat Race between Eton & Westminster which took place on that day & terminated in favour of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[368,160,168],"tags":[378,303,175,376,213,42,43,270,377],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/townboyledger.westminster.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}