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The important contributionpublic monuments make to our environment has been brought into focus in recent times by the formation of the Public Monuments and ScuiptureAssociationin 1991 .*The Asso ciation seeks to record, provide information on and promote the preservation of public monuments and sculpture. It is currently working with five Tyne and Wear districts in their production of a popular guide to public monuments within the County to coincide with the NorthernArts region hosting the ‘Year of Visual Arts’ in 1996.t This is the story behind two monuments recently conserved in Gateshead to folk heroes and a popular sport now more associated with upper-class Oxbridge.
THE SPORT
The spectator sport of the 19th century on Tyneside was rowing. It inspired a level of support and fanaticism to put Kevin Keegan and the ‘ToonArmy’ inthe shade. Crowds of up to 100,000 would line the banks of the Tyne for a big race. Races revolved around wagers and gambling. The structure of the sport mirrored social and economic divisions in society. Sponsors of races were drawn from the upper middle class of businessmen and industrialists. The rowers were working- class heroes. The traditional great rivals of the Tyne oarsmen were their counterparts from the Thames but for a period the men of the Tyne were all conquering and undisputed champions of the world.
THE MEN
Amongst the oarsmen of the time three names stand out. Henry ‘Harry’ Clasper was the greatest of them all. When he died an estimated 100,000 to 130,000 people lined the route of the cortege to his burial place at St. Mary’s Church, Whickham, near Gateshead. The original plan to take the coffin overland had to be abandoned owing to the crowds and, fittingly, the body was transferred to a barge and rowed up the Tyne.
*
The PMSA can be contacted at 72 Lissenden Mansions, Lissenden Gardens, London
NW5
1PR.
t
The proposed publication is facilitated by the Tyne and Wear Specialist Conservation Team, cofunded by each of the five Tyne and Wear districts, and
will
be the third in a series, following industrial archaeology and historic parks and gardens.
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Clasper was born in 1812 in Dunston, near Gateshead, home also of that latter- day Geordie sporting hero, Paul Gascoigne. The young Clasper had a variety of employment including a brief spell down the pit. He graduated to workinginboatyards. His careerin rowing began in 1837 as stroke and captain in a crewoffive, including two of his brothers. They gradually established themselves as undisputed champions of the Tyne and by 1842 were ready to take on the acknowledged world champions, the London Watermen, led by Robert Coombes. Clasper’s crewwas humiliated. Clasper was convinced that the London victory was as much to do with the London men’s superior boat as to any superiority of the crew. He spent much of the next few years working on his boat’s design, makingitlighter, modifying the keel and developing the modern outrigger. In effect Clasperhad developed the prototype forall modern racing boats.
The defeatwasrevengedinJune
1845.
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For Clasper
it
was a family affair, his crew consisted of three of his brothers and an uncle (replacing yet another brother who had been killed). Victoryraisedthe Clasper family to the forefront of the rowing world, where they duly stayed for the next fifteen years.
Though Clasper did scull (race solo) he is known as well for the teams he led. Robert Chambers was a specialist sculler. His most legendary exploit occurred in a race on the Tyne against the Thames man Tom White. During the race (on 19 April 1859) White committed what amounted to a professional foul. The net effect was that Chambers spun round so that he was facing the wrong direction and by the time he righted himself White had a lead of around 100 yards, an unassailable lead. But assail it Chambers did, in one of the great sporting comebacks. As there had been a foul Chambers offered to race again; White declined.
Chambers went from strength to strength and won the World Sculling Championship against Green ofAustralia in 1863. However, perhaps he pushed himself too hard. He contracted tuberculosis and died aged 37 on
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June 1868, before Clasper(who died in 1870), and provided Tyneside with the first of three great oarsmen’s funerals.
The third of the triumvirate wasJames Renforth, who at 29 was the youngest to die. In the year that Chambers died Renforth emulated him and became World Sculling Champion. Like Clasper he was also a leader of larger crews. Renforth’s last race was in August 1871 on the River Kennebaccasis, New Brunswick, Canada, against a Canadian crew. Renforth collapsed mid-race, the crew pulled to the shore and he died in the arms of hisfriend and colleague Kelly. The cause of death was diagnosed as congestion of the lungs. The Canadians named a small town Renforth in his honour.
THE SCULPTOR
Little is knownabout the sculptor George Burn though he seems to have had a monopoly on commissions for rowers’ monuments and was responsible for the monuments to Clasper, Chambers and Renforth. The zenith of his career seems to have been the early 1870s when his name appears onmonuments to anumber
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The restored monument to Harry Clasper, with four new columns.
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CONTEXT
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