Nov 14, 2023HTBS

Boat Race Night: A Certain Licence

In PG Wodehouse’s Without the Option (1925) Bertie Wooster (played here by Cambridge Old Blue, Hugh Laurie) ended up in court the morning after he stole a policeman’s helmet on Boat Race Night.

14 November 2023

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch on licence and law-breaking.  

Although the 2024 Oxford – Cambridge Boat Races are twenty weeks away, those outside the Oxbridge boat clubs can spot early signs of activity. Light and Dark Blue fours were recently training on the Tideway course in preparation for the eventually cancelled Fours Head and invitations have been sent out for the Presidents’ Challenge on 16 November. 

The Fours Head crews that would have raced are listed on the Boat Race website. The Cambridge women had planned to enter nine boats and the Cambridge men ten. The Oxford women were going to boat five crews but, strangely, the Oxford men did not enter any of their squad. While the squad lists are not yet officially published, a quick glance at the intended Fours Head crews seem to indicate that Cambridge men have six returning Blues and the women three. Four Blues are returning for the Oxford women.

While it still may be premature to talk of Boat Race Day, it may be even more untimely to consider Boat Race Night. This is especially so as, in modern times, Boat Race Night is not “a thing” for most people. However, in years past, the hours of darkness following what was then one race saw riotous celebrations both by students and others in the West End of London that were, to current sensibilities, often rather shocking.

These days, the only really noisy celebrations in the West End on the night of the Boat Race are by the winning crews and their supporters in the relative privacy of their chosen dinner venue(s). For the losing crews, dinner may be a little more subdued affair – as demonstrated here in 2022 by second placed Cambridge and Goldie, freshly showered and changed and awaiting transport to take them from the finish at Chiswick to the joint CUBC dinner in Central London.

The phenomenon of wild merrymaking in the West End of London on Boat Race Night was frequently referred to in the novels of PG Wodehouse. In Without the Option, the Bosher Street (i.e. Bow Street) magistrate remarks that:

I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities.

The Wikipedia page for Wodehouse’s most famous (or perhaps, second most famous) character, Bertie Wooster says:

It was at Oxford that (Bertie) first began celebrating the night of the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge.

Bertie himself says:

Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing, there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge—or, putting it another way, Boat Race Night. Then, if ever, you will see Bertram under the influence.

Wikipedia again:

Specifically, Bertie and others tend to celebrate the (Boat Race) by stealing a policeman’s helmet, though they often get arrested as a result. London magistrates are aware of this tradition and tend to be lenient towards Bertie when he appears in court the morning after the Boat Race, generally only imposing a fine of five pounds…

Strangely, Bertie’s only acquaintance who had strong rowing connections, G. D’Arcy “Stilton” Cheesewright, never ended up in court post-Boat Race despite having been Captain of Boats at Eton and rowing assiduously for Oxford: “His entire formative years… had been spent in dipping an oar into the water, giving it a shove and hauling it out again…” Picture: Kevin Cornell.

In a website on literary and cultural references in Wodehouse, several court appearances on the morning after the Boat Race are noted:

(Bertie) was hauled up before the Vine Street magistrate during his second year at Oxford in Thank You, Jeeves (along with Chuffy Chuffnell)… He also recalls, in Jeeves and the Chump Cyril, having to bail out a pal who got pinched every Boat Race night. Other Wodehouse characters who celebrate to excess on Boat Race night include Oliver “Sippy” Sipperley in Without the Option, Lord Datchet in Piccadilly Jim, and Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, recalled in The Word in Season and Joy in the Morning. In Full Moon, Tipton Plimsoll pledges not to go on a real toot except on special occasions like Boat Race night.

Another author writing at the same time, Arthur Ransome, has Oxford dropout Captain Flint, a character in one of his Swallows and Amazons children’s books, recount that he was once in jail on Boat Race Night due to high spirits (and) a fancy for policemen’s helmets.

The truth, however, may not have been stranger than fiction but it was often less amusing. The latitude often given to the minority (students and others) who committed quite serious offences on Boat Race Night was disgraceful. 

The earliest newspaper references to Boat Race Night violence and vandalism were syndicated in April 1875. Amazingly, it was not the students who “amused themselves with breaking the furniture (and) assaulting the waiters” in Evans’ Supper Rooms who feared the wrath of the authorities, it was the establishment’s proprietor.
The Globe of 6 April 1908 reports that even schoolmasters were not immune from “the usual Boat-race demonstrations in the West-end… where a crowd of 4,000 had collected.” 
In 1909, a “Gentleman of Position” got drunk on Boat Race Night, assaulted two policemen and had to be restrained by five more. The magistrate seemed to think that the fact that it had been an exciting race was some sort of mitigation.
As the Lewisham Borough News of 2 April 1909 shows, a film “produced at enormous cost” allowed people to view that year’s race at Catford’s Electric Picture Palace “several times during the evening… from start to finish”. Hopefully, the audiences were well-behaved.
The Times of 31 March 1914 reported on another Boat Race Night tradition, riding on the top of taxis.
The Civil & Military Gazette of 21 April 1921 noted rowdyism in the Alhambra Theatre. Strangely, theatres and music halls were frequently places of bad behaviour throughout the year.
Following the 1924 Boat Race, the Oxford bow and President, PC Mallam (inset) ended up at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court after an incident at the Empire Theatre.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer of 21 March 1925 outlines that year’s Boat Race Night plans.
The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 9 April 1927 pictured the victorious Cambridge crew being entertained at the Midnight Follies.
Boat Race Night crowds in 1932 were considered “well behaved” – despite thirty arrests.
In 1934, The Daily Herald published this cartoon protesting about a planned naval shipbuilding programme. The phrase “a Boat Race Night” was obviously a clearly understood byword for a riotous celebration.
“Escapades” in 1934 included kicking a policeman.
Piccadilly Circus was frequently the centre of Boat Race Night rowdiness. In 1938, Hammersmith riverside resident and artist Eric Ravilious produced a Boat Race bowl for Wedgwood. The exterior showed various stages of Boat Race Day while the interior showed Piccadilly Circus on Boat Race Night – complete with people riding on the top of a taxi and a reveller sliding down the statue of Eros. One such bowl is currently for sale on eBay for £9,000.
Traditions maintained, 1935.
Some of the 1935 Cambridge Crew demonstrate a more civilised way of spending Boat Race Night.
In 1928, the left-wing Daily Herald made this obvious but little stated point about how criminal acts on Boat Race Night were often treated. 

Due to the war, there were no Boat Races between 1940 and 1945. Riotous and barely punished behaviour on Boat Race Night never started again after the conflict. Post-war Britain, suffering many material privations but hopeful of an end to the old ways under the new socialist government, was in no mood for such reminders of pre-war ostentatiousness, deference and privilege. 

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