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University Oars
University Oars is a compilation of letters of response to the author from the
participants of the Oxford and Cambridge boat races. John Edward Morgan,
himself a former university oarsman and physician to the Manchester Royal
Inrmary, spent four years sending inquiries and compiling responses in his
eort to shed some light on an important perceived physiological problem
which he sought to investigate for the welfare of the rising generation.
Published in 1873, his responses numbered 251 out of 255 letters sent to
university oarsmen, detailing the athletes’ current physical and mental
condition. Morgan’s ndings dispel the widely held notion of the time that
the famous test of strength and endurance had adverse latent physiological
and psychological eects on its stalwart participants.
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© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009
is edition rst published 1873
is digitally printed version 2009
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UNIVERSITY
OARS.

UNIVERSITY
OARS
BEING
A CRITICAL ENQUIRY INTO
THE
AFTER HEALTH
OF
THE MEN WHO
ROWED
IN
THE
FROM
THE
YEAR
1829 TO 1869,

And
the old
land shall hold, firm
as
ever,
her own."
MACMILLAN
AND
CO.
1873.
[All Rights reserved.^

DEDICATED
BY
PERMISSION
TO
THE HONOURABLE
MR.
JUSTICE DENMAN,
SENIOR CLASSIC,
FORMERLY FELLOW
OF
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
WINNER OF THE COLQUHOUN SCULLS
AND
UNIVERSITY
OAR.

INTRODUCTION.
THE

stranger, must always be looked upon with a certain
amount of suspicion. The subject of our ails and our
aches is a somewhat delicate one. When therefore my
hygienic appeals were consigned to the fire or the waste
paper basket, it seemed a politic measure to allow some
time to elapse ere I renewed my importunate requests,
while at the same time I endeavoured to obtain through
the assistance of common friends, or some of our leading
rowing authorities, either a personal introduction, or at
all events some recognition of the importance of my
researches.
Another difficulty with which I have had to contend
has arisen from the numerous inaccuracies which more
or less pervade all the lists of the University Oarsmen,
inaccuracies which very materially detract from the
value of those records. I have learnt also from painful
experience that neither the University Calendars nor
the College Books can be implicitly trusted. The mis-
placement or alteration of initial letters, and the mis-
spelling of surnames, virtually substitute some illegiti-
mate stranger for the rightful possessor of an Oar.
These and similar reasons will I believe serve as some
INTRODUCTION.
IX
apology
for the
length
of
time occupied
in

received from contemporaries
and friends, without searching
on in
quest
of
those still
missing till
one by one
they were discovered,
the
results
of
this enquiry might have appeared some
two
years sooner.
I
have, however, felt strongly that
the
whole value
of
such
an
investigation must depend upon
its being exhaustive
; and
when
I
mention
the
fact that

of
Oxford,
and one is a
graduate
of
Cambridge.
To
each
of
them
I
have addressed several
communications,
but
hitherto without avail. Another
old
Oar,
though
he has
favoured
me
with full particulars
regarding
his
health,
has
requested
me to
refrain from
publishing

still cannot refrain from
specially thanking
my
brother,
the
Rev.
H. A.
Morgan,
X INTRODUCTION'.
Jesus College, Cambridge, Mr Charles Stuart Parker,
M.R, Mr Halifax Wyatt, Mr Smyly, Mr S. D. Darbi-
shire, Mr George Morrison, the Rev. Arthur Shadwell,
and Mr Thomas Selby Egan, besides a very large
number of clergymen who have rendered me much
help in tracing old Oars who happened at any time
to have been located in their respective parishes. To
the clergy, therefore, among whose ranks may be
found a large number of the most accomplished dis-
ciples of the Bat and the Oar which the Universities
have turned out, I am deeply indebted for the kindness
and courtesy which they have invariably extended to
me.
Press of business has frequently prevented me
from acknowledging letters at the time they were re-
ceived. I would now beg to offer my apologies to my
correspondents for such apparent neglect, and to return
them my sincere thanks for their disinterested kind-
ness.
The Inter-University Races from 1829 to 1869 (both
years included) will be found chronologically arranged

plan. Many of them however objected to the arrange-
ment, some wishing to know how it had fared with their
old shipmates, others considering that much greater
weight would attach to these statistics if the personal
experience of each rower were backed up by his name
and signature. In all cases, therefore, where rowing was
not supposed to be attended with injurious results, I
decided to yield to their wishes and to insert the names,
taking care at the same time to obtain the permission
xii INTRODUCTION.
of the writers. As, however, there may be several to
whom I have inadvertently omitted to communicate
my change of plan, I have taken this opportunity of
explaining to them the reasons which induced me to
alter my intentions.
Where however there seemed grounds for suspecting
that rowing had been attended with more or less serious
consequences, I have omitted the names of the supposed
sufferers, and merely discussed their ailments in general
terms;
taking care to give no clue to the writer, but
merely affixing to each case, by way of distinction, a
letter of the alphabet. I also carefully excluded from the
published letters all personal allusions or remarks calcu-
lated in any way to cause annoyance to the surviving
Oarsmen or to the friends of those who are no longer
alive. It must not, however, be assumed that in all
cases where the name of a living Oarsman is not sup-
plemented by a letter, he has necessarily sustained some
injury from his exertions, for it must be remembered

(when a somewhat lively correspondence had been ex-
cited by the able letters of the late Mr Skey), and
from which I quote the following remarks: "The con-
troversy excited by Mr Skey's letter to this journal,
may be productive of great benefit, if it elicits the facts
which can alone decide it. When an eminent surgeon
appeals to his own experience and that of his professional
brethren in support of the opinion that many a con-
stitution is injured by the University Boat-Races, his
protest cannot be set aside by allegations of ' palpable
XIV
INTRODUCTION.
ignorance/
The
first question
is not, as one of our
correspondents seems
to
imagine, whether
Mr
Skey
understands
the
principles
and
practice
of
rowing,
but
whether

School
and
College;
and
if they happen
to
hear
in
after life that
one has suc-
cumbed from heart complaint,
and
another broken down
from exhaustion
of the
nervous system, they seldom
think
of
coupling these calamities with over-exertion
in
athletic sports.
'The
evil/ according
to Mr
Skey,
'is
not
immediate,
but
remote.'

medical profession.
Had
such
an
inquiry
been made,
Mr
Skey would
not
have failed
to
quote
its
results, instead
of
referring
to
"some cases" which
he
had witnessed
himself,
and
"several more"
of
which
he
had heard. Twenty-four regular University Boat-Races
have now been rowed,
of
which eighteen were over

age within the same period, we should be in a position
to judge, with some approach to certainty, whether these
matches do or do not tend to shorten life and weaken
the constitution. As it
is,
Mr Skey's warning is founded
in a great degree on presumptions, the grounds of which
are disputed by his opponents."
It will be seen from the foregoing extract that at
the time this correspondence was carried on, such
statistics as those which I have collected were felt to be
needed, but did not then exist.
Though this inquiry has occupied no inconsiderable
portion of my leisure hours during the last three or four
years,
and though its prosecution has necessitated the
writing of upwards of two thousand letters, still the
whole work has been a labour of love, prompted by a
pure affection for rowing, and by a deep-rooted conviction
that in these days of incessant mental tension and in-
tellectual excitement of every kind, we should not allow
so manly and health-giving an exercise to be unjustly
assailed.
For the satisfactory treatment of this subject two
qualifications seemed to me to be imperatively demanded.
First, some knowledge of physiology; and second, some
XVI INTRODUCTION.
acquaintance with the art of Rowing as it is practised at
our Universities. To both of these qualifications I may
lay some slight claim. As physician to a large hos-

;
newspapers, periodicals, almanacs and maga-
zines vie with each other in chronicling the fullest
particulars regarding victors and vanquished, and there
are champions of the oar and the cricket-field whose
achievements are more familiar to the rising genera-
tion than those of any general, statesman, or poet who
ever adorned the pages of English history.
Whatever may be thought of this spread of athle-
ticism, and worship of muscle, one thing is certain, that
even those who are unable to sympathize with such
pastimes must still accept them as established facts—
must look upon them as recreations which have taken
so firm a hold upon the public mind that no amount
U.O. I
UNIVERSITY OARS.
of preaching will lessen their attractions, and no amount
of indiscriminate warning from medical authorities
without more particular inquiries will ever do much to
loosen their hold upon the youth of Great Britain.
Viewing athletic contests then as national institu-
tions,
what is their influence upon health
?
Are they
calculated to improve the physique of our population?
to make men stronger and longer lived? or is such
violent exercise in early life more likely seriously to
undermine the constitution, entailing after effects both
painful and serious

which may result from the exercise; that there is no
modern example of cruelty to animals so great as that
exhibited in this annual contest; and that the young
man who aspires for such laurels deliberately casts in
his lot for death or victory, perhaps for both.
Such is the language of the censors of these pas-
times.
To support their assertions they bring forward
the case of a boat which one hot summer's day rowed
from Oxford to London, and although the crew were
all sturdy and robust men when that disastrous voyage
was undertaken, five short years beheld them the sorry
wreck of what they once had been, and in another five
they were all consigned to an untimely grave. The
heart must be a hard one which could refuse to be
moved by so harrowing a tale, and with good reason
may the British mother bewail the murder of her inno*
cents and denounce the callous indifference of those to
whom their education is entrusted. As a further proof
of the dangers which result from excessive muscular
exercise, it has been usual to point to the after lives of
the champions of the prize ring, who at an early age, it
is alleged, lose their constitutional vigour and become
prematurely broken down in health. We hear also, on
somewhat doubtful testimony, that the athletes of ancient
Greece rarely attained the blessings of a green old age.
On such and somewhat similar grounds are the
objections to these pastimes generally founded. The
men of muscle, on the other hand, judging from their
own personal experience, no less than from their obser-

who have in early life devoted a large portion of their
time to the development of muscle, and by learning
from them what has been their personal experience, whe-
ther as years come round they feel themselves more and
more exhausted and decrepit, in a word, prematurely
used up; or whether they are still able to look forward
to life's future with a fair amount of cheerfulness and
hope.