3-082-525 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Universities' Boat-Race: the finish at Mortlake, 1895. Annual rowing race on the River Thames in London. 'It was an unequal contest from the beginning. In the Oxford boat were six old Blues - all but two distinguished Eton oarsmen - while the Cambridge crew were represented by eight new men, only two of whom were used to tidal waters. No one could have anticipated success for Cambridge against one of the finest 'Varsity eights that ever wore the dark blue colours at Putney. The Cantabs, though given up as hopeless by the public, and even by their friends, were far from being dispirited by the overwhelming odds against them, and, to their infinite credit be it said, they made the fifty-second contest memorable by one of the pluckiest exhibitions of oarsmanship ever seen on the Thames...If their efforts were not crowned with victory, they at least achieved one of the most honourable defeats on record...From the Press-boat one could imagine that the Light Blue stroke's face was set and determined as he kept his men well at work...the official ruling was a victory for the Dark Blues by two and a quarter lengths, and the time 20 min. 50 sec...Out of the fifty-two races Oxford have now won twenty-nine, and Cambridge twenty-two'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.