3-052-505 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat-Race: the Press Boat in a fog on Saturday Morning, and the Race Postponed; The Race on Monday Morning, 1880. 'The foggy weather on the Thames at eight o'clock on Saturday occasioned the postponement of the Boat-Race, which came off on Monday, at a somewhat later hour of the day...Many thousands of people assembled there and at Hammersmith, and at other parts of the course, were put to a disappointment the more severely felt after they had suffered the discomfort of waiting on the banks in such cheerless weather...it was announced...that the race would not be rowed that day....One of the sketches in the Engraving on our front page was taken on board the steam-boat assigned to the newspaper reporters and Special Artists on Saturday, and it shows that their view on the river was fatally limited by the obscurity of the atmosphere, which made it impossible, at Putney, to see half-way across...[On Monday,] Those who affected a partiality for the "Dark Blues," if they had taken up their station at Chiswick, must have been gratified by the sight of "Oxford leading,"...and, as the lead was increased from one length to three in the remainder of the course, their party won as great a victory as could have been expected'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.