March is Women’s History Month – a month dedicated to recognising and celebrating all women, but especially the trailblazers. I’d like to think too that it’s about highlighting women’s stories, no matter how small.
Women’s History Month seems like the perfect opportunity to talk about one such woman in rowing: my grandmother, Dr Mary Thow (née Canvin).
I owe a lot to all the women I have trained with and coached over the decade I’ve been rowing, but I owe Mary more than all of them. I’d like to celebrate her story far more than my own.
Mary took up rowing while at the University of London in 1951. She started mostly out of spite – at school in Bedford in the 1940s, only the boys were allowed to row. She was jealous, and was never one to be told what she can and cannot do – she turns 91 this year, and some things do not change!
Mary went to university aged 18 to train as a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women. This was the first medical school for women, opening in 1877; in my grandmother’s year, there were 70 women and seven men, as the university had recently started admitting men. She maintains that this was a very good ratio and says, with dismay, that the few men still made their presence known.
Over 70 years ago, my grandmother found the same solace in university rowing as I did: it was a break from uni work, a way to make friends and get outside, and a place of belonging for a tall strong young woman.
She remembers waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning to get the tube down to Chiswick for training. Rowing on the Thames in the 1950s was much less pleasant than today – rowing past huge coal barges, pushing massive, filthy wash towards them. She also contends that training on the Thames in winter is the reason she has not had a cold in her adult life – although I’m not sure of the scientific accuracy of this.
In her second year, she was part of the University of London Women’s Boat Club (ULWBC) crew selected for the 1953 Women’s International Regatta. This was the third of three trial regattas held 1951-1953 to help FISA decide whether a women’s European Championship was viable. The ULWBC crew won at the small selection regatta, beating Alpha and St George’s in a series of races, so were selected to represent Great Britain in Copenhagen.
There were still many objections to women competing internationally, so the event was held before the Men’s European Championship, as on no account was it to be held simultaneously (lest women think their sporting prowess was comparable, I suppose). Furthermore, the women’s races were over 1000m, while the men’s were over the standard 2000m. It was even suggested that the women’s races be partially judged on ‘style’, though thankfully this idea was scrapped.
My grandmother said: “It felt like we were being taken somewhat seriously finally – men were not keen for us to be recognised.”
It would have been a great adventure for 20-year-old Mary and her crew, but it also marked a turning point in the evolution of women’s international rowing. Those young women paved the way: the next year, 1954, was the advent of the Women’s European Championships, which ran until 1974 when it was replaced with the World Championships. Women’s rowing wasn’t included in the Olympic Games until 1976 – but 20 years earlier, these women were fighting to be included.
However, they were not always taken as seriously as they would have liked. At 90, Mary’s memory of the regatta isn’t strong, but she remembers bits still. She remembers that the crew were outraged when they were featured in a local London paper, but were in the fashion section rather than the sports pages. One such newspaper cutting refers to them as ‘trim girls’ – in one phrase objectifying and infantilising them. Where they should have been praised for their sporting success and pioneering efforts, they were again treated as lesser to the men.
My grandmother remembers sitting in four seat, having stroked the 2nd VIII+ the year before, and says they used a borrowed shell in choppy conditions. The ULWBC crew won silver in 1953, losing to the Netherlands by 1.4 seconds, but beating the bronze medalists by around 5 seconds. My granny is still pretty chuffed with that, and rightly so.
At ULBC, there is still a photo of my grandmother and her crew in the boat club, along with painted blades and other memorabilia of victories since. It serves as a reminder of where women’s international rowing started. I’m sure that every single woman who competed in these first international women’s regattas has a similar story and has lived a similarly full life.
I do not want the story of my grandmother and her crew to be forgotten, or indeed the stories of all those who rowed at the infancy of women’s international rowing. I wish that I could highlight them all, but hopefully by celebrating Mary’s accomplishments, all those women know their achievements are not forgotten. It should be remembered that these women competed when the world was not used to it, and that they were separated where they did not want to be.
In 1953, women only competed in four boat classes to men’s seven. These days it’s closer to equal. In fact, the Paris Olympics in 2024 are set to be the first games with an equal split of female and male athletes.
There is still a long way to go, but look how far we’ve come.
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