Leander Club, founded in 1818, is one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, and the oldest non-academic club. It is based in Remenham in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

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and adjoins Henley-on-Thames. Only three other surviving clubs were founded prior to Leander: Brasenose College Boat Club and Jesus College Boat Club (the two competing in a Head race in 1815) and Westminster School Boat Club, founded in 1813.

History

Leander was founded on the Tideway in 1818 or 1819 by members of the old "Star" and "Arrow" Clubs and membership was at first limited to sixteen.''Sport, ancient and modern: Pastimes'', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2: General pp. 283–292. Date accessed: 8 October 2008
/ref> "The Star" and "the Arrow" clubs died out sometime in the 1820s and Leander itself was in full swing by 1825. By 1830 it was looked upon as a well-known and established boat club. In its early days, Leander was as much a social association as a competitive club and it was steered by a waterman. It was the first club to support young watermen and instituted a coat and badge for scullers. In 1831, Leander defeated

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in a race rowed from Hambleden Lock to Henley Bridge, but when it lost the match with Cambridge six years later, Lord Esher noted at a dinner that Leander was: However, Lord Esher also noted that they were "verging on being middle-aged men." Until 1856, the number of members was limited to twenty-five men. After this date membership was increased to thirty-five and the limit finally abolished in 1862. In 1858 Leander began to recruit members from both

and

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. Its first home is assumed to have been Searle's yard, Stangate – on the south bank of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

(on land currently occupied by St Thomas's Hospital). In 1860 the membership moved the club to Putney where a small piece of land was rented on which a tent was erected for housing boats. This land was bought by London Rowing Club in 1864 and is the site of LRC's current clubhouse. Leander was able to lease a piece of land adjoining and in 1866 started to construct a boathouse. Thirty years later, in 1897, the club purchased land in Henley-on-Thames and built its current clubhouse. The club's centre of gravity moved rapidly to Henley, although the Putney boathouse was retained until 1961. Leander entered a crew at

Henley Royal Regatta Henley Royal Regatta (or Henley Regatta, its original name pre-dating Royal patronage) is a Rowing (sport), rowing event held annually on the River Thames by the town of Henley-on-Thames, England. It was established on 26 March 1839. It diffe ...

for the first time in 1840, the year following the regatta's foundation. Their crew which won the Grand Challenge Cup included Thomas Lowther Jenkins in the 5 seat. Jenkins' winner's medal was discovered in a Belfast junk shop more than 130 years later by a member who donated it to the club, where it sits in one of the trophy cabinets. For the first 179 years of its existence, Leander was a male-only club but has accepted women members since 1998. On 1 January 2013 Debbie Flood was elected as the club's first female captain, and was re-elected the following year. Leander was one of five clubs which retained the right until 2012 to appoint representatives to the Council of British Rowing. The others were London Rowing Club, Thames Rowing Club, Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club. Leander members contributed 23 of the 45 British rowers selected for the

2020 Summer Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

Notable members

Notable members include: * Jack Beaumont * Karen Bennett * Robin Bourne-Taylor * Chloe Brew * Sholto Carnegie * John Collins * Ed Coode * James Cracknell * Jacob Dawson * Katherine Douglas * Rebecca Edwards * Charles Elwes * Henry Fieldman * Debbie Flood * Emily Ford * Thomas Ford * Tim Foster * Fiona Gammond * Thomas George * Harcourt Gilbey Gold * Jürgen Gröbler * Angus Groom * Mark Hunter * Frederick Septimus Kelly * Hugh Laurie * Ran Laurie * Harry Leask * Stuart Mackenzie * Alexander McCulloch * Rowan McKellar * Gully Nickalls * Guy Nickalls * Alex Partridge * Matthew Pinsent * Steve Redgrave * Pete Reed * Rebecca Romero * Matthew Rossiter * Will Satch * Hannah Scott * Colin Smith * Tom Stallard * Polly Swann * Victoria Thornley * Anna Watkins * Josh West * Steve Williams * Oliver Wynne-Griffith

In fiction

In Evelyn Waugh's novel '' Brideshead Revisited'', the character Cousin Jasper (who "had come within appreciable distance of getting his rowing

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") wears a Leander Club tie when he first calls upon the protagonist Charles Ryder to offer advice on being a student at Oxford.^:24,25 In the 1981 television adaptation, Cousin Jasper (played by Stephen Moore) is depicted wearing the Leander's "city" tie (dark blue with small pink hippopotamus motifs). In the novel ''Growing Up'' by Angela Thirkell, the Rev. Tommy Needham "thought how well his college and Leander oars, never to be used again, would look upon the wall...."Thirkell, "Growing Up," at p. 253 (Chapter 11) (Wakefield, RI: Moyer Bell, 1996). The Leander Club figures heavily in Deborah Crombie's detective novel, ''No Mark Upon Her''.

Honours

Recent British champions

Key * J (junior), 2, 4, 8 (crew size), 18, 16, 15, 14 (age group), x (sculls), - (coxless), + (coxed)

Henley Royal Regatta

+ composite

References

External links

Leander Club official website
{{United Kingdom rowing clubs 1818 establishments in England Sports clubs and teams established in the 1810s Rowing clubs of the River Thames Henley-on-Thames Boathouses in the United Kingdom Henley Royal Regatta Sports clubs and teams in Berkshire Rowing in Berkshire History of rowing Remenham