Aquatic Notes by Bateman and Coombes

Today at 5.55 pm is the 160th Boat Race.


As previously mentioned, we've done a bit of a Thames and Rowing window.  Probably the loveliest thing we have included, is a small, but very scarce item, Aquatic Notes.

It's by John Fitzherbert Bateman and Robert Coombes.  Coombes was a notably distinguished Thames waterman, oarsman and sculler; his first public race took place in 1838. He pioneered the successful use of skill, technique and training, thereby beating men of superior size and strength, and was Champion of the Thames from 1846-1852. His knowledge was exploited successively by the Oxford (1840) and Cambridge (1846, 1849 both races) Boat Race crews. Cambridge asked him to coach again in 1852, but a dispute broke out about the use of professional trainers, with the result that for many years both sides avoided professionals and men of working class origins. 

Sadly, Coombes descended into poverty in later life, and died in the Kent Asylum in 1860. A fine monument to him was raised at Brompton Cemetry by public subscription in 1866.

There is a contemporary owner name in the book of G. B. Forster, L. M. B. C. (i.e. Lady Margaret Boat-Club, St. John's College) George Baker Forster, 1832 - 1901, rowed for Cambridge at the 1853 meeting of Oxford and Cambridge at the Henley Regatta.


It was the sole edition published.  Copac, the academic, national & specialist library catalogues for the UK and Ireland, only locates copies at the British Library, Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, and Southampton. Uncommon, the last copy to appear in auction five years ago, made more at Winters auctioneers, after commission, for a stamped ex-library copy that was rubbed, and cracked at the hinges, than we are asking for our copy



Aquatic Notes, or Sketches of the Rise and Progress of Rowing at Cambridge, 
By a Member of C. U. B. C., With a Letter Containing Hints on Rowing and Training By Robert Coombes, Champion-Sculler
Cambridge J. Deighton 1852
First Edition Publisher's Cloth Very Good Small 8vo.
pp. xi (i) mispaginated, 107 (1, blank). Original dark blue cloth, titled in gilt on upper cover within ornamental frame, spine titled gilt within a gilt blocked oar, matt pink eps, erosion to the head and a small amount of loss to the tail of the spine, otherwise a bright copy.

Pull together

Stephen