Regatta: A New History

By Jack Fitzgerald

The Royal St. John’s Regatta is North America’s oldest continuous sporting event, and is set to publically celebrate its 200th anniversary. In this fascinating and entertaining history, Jack Fitzgerald tells the story of the Regatta from its early days as rollicking pond-side revelry to the more family-oriented event it is today. And in the process, Fitzgerald uncovers evidence to suggest the race is not as continuous as we previously thought. In Regatta: A New History, Fitzgerald rewrites the tale of one of the most beloved civic events in North America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Breakwater Books
• Release date: Jul 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781550817416

Jack Fitzgerald

Jack Fitzgerald has worked as a journalist and political columnist with the St. John’s Daily News; a reporter and public affairs writer with CJON and VOCM news; and as the editor of The Newfoundland Herald and Newfoundland Chronicle. He lives in St. John’s.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One: History Tells the Tale

Chapter Two: A Lack of Good Boats

Chapter Three: Humour at the Regatta

Chapter Four: Good Times at the Races

Chapter Five: Regatta Rogues and Rowers

Chapter Six: Issues and Oddities

Chapter Seven: The Rum and Brew Era

Chapter Eight: The Royal Influence

Chapter Nine: Heroes of the Regatta

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

It is difficult for today’s generation to understand that, for 172 years, the founding date of the St. John’s Regatta was not an issue. As to the true establishment of the event, many dates have been tossed about. Included among these are the years 1818, 1824, 1825, 1831, 1833, 1850, and 1871.

In 1871, when a group of rowing enthusiasts set out to organize an annual Regatta with a stable foundation that included a permanent committee along with rules and regulations to guide it, the date of the first Regatta was unknown. If actual committee records of the pre-1871 era had existed in that time, very few survived.

A few records from the 1850s were in its possession, but as far as committee members were concerned, 1871 was meant to be the starting date for a permanently held annual St. John’s Regatta. The prevalent attitude during that era was that the races on Quidi Vidi Lake, in previous years, were few and irregular. However, if the newspaper records which began turning up in the twentieth century had been available to the 1871 committee, a different view of the first Regattas would have been incorporated into the history they began documenting.

Instead, the few records held in their possession disappeared during the most deplorable days in Newfoundland history: The Great Depression.

The vagueness surrounding the initiation of the Regatta as an official event was rooted in a number of complications. The Royal Gazette, established in 1807, was Newfoundland’s first newspaper. It was followed by The Mercantile Journal, The Newfoundlander, Public Ledger, The Courier, The Newfoundland Patriot, and The Sentinel. Sporting activities were newsworthy events, and each paper covered the Regattas with some providing more information than others. But a number of early Regatta researchers failed to exhaustively research these early newspapers, which were not destroyed or lost to time. Another major problem was the series of fires that destroyed the city of St. John’s. While many records did survive the infernos, they were not collected in a single archive or easily accessible until 1949 when the new provincial government established a provincial archive at the Colonial Building.

The pioneers of that effort were Allan Fraser, Burnham Gill, Anthony (Tony) Murphy, and Howard Brown. Dr. Bobbie Robertson played a part as well when she helped set up the Newfoundland Historic Society office and archives in the basement of the Colonial Building.

Across the hall from her was another significant figure, Frank Graham, who helped establish the Newfoundland Sports Archives. Graham made important contributions to our understanding of when the Regatta was officially founded. John V. Rabbitts, historian and Evening Telegram sports editor, also made important contributions.

I picked up where Graham and Rabbitts left off and followed a different approach. I sought out the records that were missed by other researchers and focused on all surviving records. And that is why I was able to finally determine the age of our Royal St. John’s Regatta.

The details of the contributions made by earlier Regatta historians and my own subsequent findings are revealed here in Chapter One.

In 1955, Evening Telegram Editor Mike Harrington made an observation that is applicable to the unfortunate way Regatta history was side-tracked over the past hundred years when historic facts faded from public memory. Harrington stated:

Yes, the stories about our annual Regatta are colourful and exciting. There has been humour and tragedy, good sportsmanship, fine rowing ability, gallantry and chivalry, all displayed there at various times. As the years go by and imagination throws its varied hues over the ancient picture, it is hard sometimes to know where fact goes out and fiction enters, where history stops and legend begins. Yet there remains room for restoring the factual history while preserving our cultural legends, and both are needed to foster the continuation and popularity of the Royal St. John’s Regatta.

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CHAPTER 1

History Tells the Tale

Although no evidence exists to show 1818 as the starting date of the St. John’s Regatta, 2018 is hailed as the 200th anniversary of the city’s most celebrated sporting event. And although there is undisputable evidence which reveals the Regatta was not a continuous yearly event, officials and media still boldly refer to 2018 as the 200th running of the Regatta. Did the St. John’s Regatta begin in 1818, and has it always been a continuous event? The simple truth: Neither assertion is true.

At the source of the century-long confusion over when the Regatta started is not missing documents, but documents missed by researchers.

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1904 Come Home Year Regatta. (City of St. John’s Archives)

In 2002 when the Regatta Committee announced new evidence had come to light that proved the annual St. John’s Regatta started on St. John’s Harbour in 1818, the official starting date was changed from 1826 to 1818, which made the event eight years older than previously thought. But the public was not aware that, in reality, there was nothing new in the evidence itself. Only the interpretation of that evidence had changed.

That new evidence, accepted and endorsed by the committee, was based solely on two points: That there had been a tradition of annual regattas held on St. John’s Harbour, and that these regattas were held annually in celebration of royal anniversaries.

The 1818 Mercantile Journal clearly showed only that the rowing contest on St. John’s Harbour that year was held—along with cricket matches, horse races, and a twenty-one gun salute—to celebrate the anniversary of King George III. The evidence presented in 2002 was quoted from Hall of Fame records, submitted almost ten years earlier, and stated, This would appear to be the first such event held on an organized basis and, again, it took place on the Harbour of St. John’s.

However, archival records combine to show that this rowing contest was a part of many events celebrating the anniversary of King George III. It was clearly not part of an annual regatta of any type.

There is no evidence that the 1818 rowing contest was a part of an organized, or even an informal, tradition. There are no archival records indicating that a regatta was held in 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, or 1823.

Recently, I completed twenty years of research into the nineteenth-century regattas and determined that the actual beginning of the Royal St. John’s Regatta is limited to a choice between either 1824 or 1825.

CONFUSION GREW

Confusion over the starting date was compounded in 1890 when one aging fan recalled, to the best of his recollections, that the Regatta was held on the harbour before moving it to Quidi Vidi. The octogenarian, writing in the Evening Telegram in 1886, recalled that the first Regatta was held, Somewhere in the 1830s about 1832 and then mistakenly suggested that the first races were held on the harbour.

In respect to history, the dire economic conditions better remembered as The Great Depression challenged the survival of the Regatta. It left those dedicated to saving it with little interest in its origins. By that time, it was collectively agreed that the Regatta had begun in 1828. The 1828 newspaper accounts of the Regatta—which included detailed information on how it was organized, who participated, and the types of boats used—were the only known surviving records.

By the 1930s the limited records that survived the pre-1871 era had disappeared. The public was no longer concerned with the Regatta’s genesis, and the Regatta itself was on the verge of a complete collapse.

RABBITTS SURPRISES EVERYONE

On July 18, 1960, the following headline appeared in the Evening Telegram: Local Sports Historian Sheds New Light on Annual Regatta—Event at Least 140 Years Old.

In this article, John V. Rabbitts stated, Having delved into available records I have unearthed the fact that our Annual Regatta is 140 years old. The Regatta was billed that year as the 138th Regatta.

Rabbitts explained, I have even journeyed to the British Museum to see if they had papers we didn’t, but no luck there. However, he went beyond previous Regatta historians and succeeded in finding a newspaper record dated 1826. Soon after, the Regatta Committee acknowledged this evidence and recognized 1826 as the beginning of the St. John’s Regatta.

Rabbitts pointed out that the record described the Regatta as an annual event organized by the Amateur Rowers of St. John’s at a public meeting, which elected a committee. Since no earlier record had been found, he suggested that 1825 be recognized.

BOB BADCOCK AND GORDON KISS ENTER THE DEBATE

Some year’s later, Evening Telegram sports editor, Bob Badcock, revealed that Gordon Kiss, another collector of sports history, had brought evidence to his office showing that Rabbitts, before his death, had uncovered a record showing that 1824 was the beginning of our Regatta. Badcock revealed the finding through a front-page article in the Evening Telegram. It appears that whatever that evidence was disappeared after the death of Rabbitts. Rabbitts, however, had ruled out 1818 as a significant date in Regatta history.

Still, 1824 remains a likely commencement date. Remember, there were no regattas held up to 1823, and the 1826 newspapers indicate it was already an annual event.

Frank Graham, Newfoundland sports archivist, in his book Ready…Set…Go!, came to the same conclusion as did Jack V. Rabbitts, in disregarding 1818 as the start of our Regatta. Like Graham and Rabbits, I have expanded the existing research, which has enabled me to write this completed history of the origins of the St. John’s Regatta.

ERA OF FIRST ST. JOHN’S REGATTAS

Confusion has reigned for more than a hundred years over the term harbour regattas. That misperception originated in the discovery of records published in the Mercantile Journal in 1826,¹ which stated the Regatta would be a two-day event with a rowing contest on Quidi Vidi Lake on the first day and a sailing contest on St. John’s Harbour the second day. It took many years to finally determine that the 1826 harbour regatta was not the continuation of an established tradition (it was not connected to the rowing contest that took place on the harbour in 1818) but actually an equal part of a two-day Quidi Vidi Regatta. By 1900, the flawed idea that the St. John’s Regatta originated on the harbour was firmly entrenched, and the error went unquestioned until 2002, just days after the Regatta Committee adopted 1818 as the first St. John’s Regatta. At that time, I disputed their claim in a 1300 word letter which appeared in The Telegram.

During the first era of Regatta history, up to 1860, the races were held intermittently. The group that organized the project and conducted annual public meetings to elect a committee identified themselves as The Amateurs of Rowing. In the context of that era, the word amateurs had a