A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



A.R.C., W. H. Potts and M. A. Graydon of 

 the Sunderland Club, T. Atkinson, C. Renold- 

 son, and R. Purvis of the South Shields Club, 

 W. Fawcus, G. R. Ramsay, J. Morrison, J. L. 

 Browne of the Tynemouth Club, were all men 

 who, in the seventies or early eighties, made no 

 ordinary mark. 



Durham University has had at various times 

 men who have impressed good judges of rowing 

 as being of far more than average merit. Such 

 were L. Taylor in the fifties, C. H. Brown in 

 the early sixties, E. W. J. Symons in the later 

 sixties, A. Hemstead, A. A. Cory, W. H. 

 Macaulay, and F. E. Lowe in the seventies, 

 H. B. Smith in the early eighties, G. C. Pollard 

 in 1895, and M. Buchannan, whom we have 

 mentioned above. 



The above names are only a few of many 

 which might be selected as types of oarsmen of 

 sterling excellence who have been trained by 

 Durham Regatta. Of late years no club has 

 been more successful than Ryton. C. M. W. 

 Potts, G. Oswald, C. C. Maughan, G. K. 

 Walker, T. W. Bourn, and E. Bateson are 

 names of high-class oarsmen whom it is easy to 

 enumerate from the crews of this club. In the 

 late eighties and early nineties W. Greenwell, 

 G. F. L. Preston, L. Browne, and F. Ranken 



of Sunderland were men whose victories were 

 the due reward of sterling excellence. 



The history of Durham rowing, then, is 

 practically the history of Durham Regatta. 

 Durham Regatta, at any rate, is the centre of 

 the history. It gives the impulse and the motive 

 to north-country oarsmen, and affords a training 

 for those young oarsmen who hope afterwards 

 to distinguish themselves at Henley or at Putney. 

 It is satisfactory that the regatta has flourished 

 for more than seventy years. That it is at the 

 present date so prosperous is largely due to the 

 whole-hearted devotion with which it has been 

 served for many years by its secretary, Mr. John 

 Chisman. It would be difficult to over-estimate 

 the value of the services which Mr. Chisman 

 has rendered to north-country rowing. 



The record of our rowing is full of the names 

 of good oarsmen, good comrades, and good 

 sportsmen. No one who knows north-country 

 oarsmen need hesitate to apply to them the 

 words which the late Lord Esher spoke at the 

 Jubilee dinner of the University boat race in 

 1 88 1 : 'Our boating career taught us persever- 

 ance and energy ; and perseverance and energy, 

 and much more a manly generosity, make, as 

 far as my experience goes, everybody succeed in 

 any career in life.' 



GOLF 



The history of the royal and ancient game 

 begins in the county of Durham with the year 

 1873, when the late Dr. McCuaig, a physician 

 in practice at Middlesbrough, began play on the 

 fine turf that grows amid the sand-hills along the 

 coast at Seaton Carew, about two miles from 

 West Hartlepool. The keen eye of the Scots- 

 man saw that here was undulating turf of the 

 true golfing quality, with such plenty of wide 

 and deep sand bunkers and bent-covered hillocks 

 that the place was ideal for his national game. 

 His enthusiasm soon bore fruit. In the next 

 year a society was founded under the name of 

 the Durham and Yorkshire Golf Club, with the 

 doctor himself as captain, to play over a course 

 of fourteen holes along the tide-washed shores of 

 Tees estuary. By the year 1884 four more 

 holes had been added ; a well-appointed club- 

 house was built, and the club was refounded as 

 the Seaton Carew Golf Club, which thus plays 

 over one of the oldest courses in England. 



It claims with justice that its golf is of very 

 high quality. The soil is sandy, the turf through 

 the green and on the putting greens is excel- 

 lent ; the hazards, consisting of sand bunkers, 

 ponds, and mighty ramparts and spurs of the 

 sand-hills, afford a fine test of golfing skill ; 

 while the holes, varying in length from 140 

 to 500 yards, are admirably planned. The 



total length of the links is some 3^ miles ; and 

 if it must be conceded that a few of the holes are 

 somewhat flat and grassy, the sporting character 

 of the remainder of the round more than com- 

 pensates for this slight defect. The short seventh 

 hole, a mashie shot over a lofty sand-bank on to 

 a perfect blind green, is as good a hole of its kind 

 as may be found anywhere. 



The amateur and professional records of 76 

 and 74 respectively testify that consistently 

 accurate play meets with its due reward. But 

 an ideal score is hard to come by in that wilder- 

 ness of sand-hills, and Bogey is contented with a 

 modest 84. The principal prizes of the club are 

 the Londonderry Cup, the Gray Trophy, the 

 Calcutta Cup, and the Thompson Medal. 



With Seaton Carew we take leave of the only 

 real seaside links in the county ; for though the 

 courses of the South Shields and the Sunderland 

 (Wearside) Golf Clubs are within sight and sound 

 of the sea, neither of them has the sandy soil, 

 the natural bunkers and the fine turf that are 

 the pride of the premier club. 



The South Shields course is one of eighteen 

 holes. It is on high ground overlooking the Vale 

 of the Wear, and commands fine views of the 

 coast-line between Redcar and Newbiggin. 



The Wearside Golf Club, founded in 1892, 

 has its course at Coxgreen, some six miles from 



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