Regeneration of a Rowing Club after the Great War.

How does a rowing club regenerate itself after the toll of the Great War? Barwon Rowing Club had an enlistment rate of 91% and eleven members killed. All of its members did not return home until the end of 1919, the last being welcomed back by his local church bells playing "There's No Place Like Home", and few of them returned to the sport either through wounds or trauma. Yet within three years the club had won the Victorian Rowing Association's Junior Premiership, the first win by a non-metropolitan club since since the award's inauguration in 1905, and came third in the Senior Premiership. The results were even more significant as this was a change-over year, with the rowing season being altered from June to May to January to December, and as such was held over an eighteen month period. The club would not win a Victorian award again until 1957.

The resurgence was driven by an energetic secretary/treasurer and a renovated clubhouse combining to produce a rapid increase in membership. At the same time there was also a community driven River Improvement Scheme which saw improvements to the rowing course and the removal of bends and beds of reeds.

The beginning of 1920 saw the resumption for the first time in five years of the Barwon Regatta, the 1919 regatta having been cancelled due to crowd restrictions placed as a result of the Spanish flu epidemic which followed the soldiers return. In November 1920 with the first post war rowing season underway, the club revived the 1914 plans to extend the club's facilities. A sub-committee was appointed to design and finance the new works. As well as providing extra boat storage under one roof, consolidating the numerous outbuildings which housed the fleet, and more modern facilities for the rowers, the overall scheme allowed for the expansion of the club's activities into athletics and other sports. The final proposal recommended the addition of a second storey, construction of a balcony, secretary's office, board room and billiard room and the provision of a gymnasium equipped with boxing ring and wrestling mat. Electric lighting was also to be installed as were catering facilities to provide an evening meal for rowers in training.

Albert Renshaw

Early in 1922, member and former serviceman Albert Renshaw's tender of £865/10/- for building works was accepted, with the final cost expected to be £1500. Altogether 78 members, companies and prominent citizens purchased debentures in the Athletic Section of the club at £1 each to finance the works and a bank guarantee of £850 secured the balance. Albert had enlisted in the A.I.F. in the middle of 1916 and arrived in France at the end of June 1918. He served with the Fifth Divisional Artillery Column until the end of the war. In January 1919 he was sent to England with migraine. He was eventually discharged as medically unfit in March with vertigo, headache and "debility", probably post traumatic stress disorder. The new rooms were opened in November 1921 before an audience of 300 and were dedicated the club's fallen members. They were described as the best rowing facilities in the Commonwealth.

The driving force behind the club's growth was Harold Hurst. He had been educated at the Geelong College and joined Barwon in 1911 aged 23 years. He enlisted in the A.I.F.'s 5th Battalion in August 1914 but was discharged as medically unfit with pneumonia a month later. Harold joined the Barwon committee in 1916 and throughout the war years volunteered with the Geelong branch of the Red Cross. Early in 1921 he took on the dual roles of secretary and treasurer and by October Barwon's general committee had approved the club's new athletic section, with rules drafted by Harold, incorporating athletics, harriers, a football team, boxing and wrestling. By 1922 this new section was conducting the Victorian Championships in boxing and wrestling.

In 1919 membership numbered 75, in 1920 just 83, in 1921 it had grown to 126 and at the end of 1922 it stood at 227, an increase of 200% in three years.

Harold Hurst

Harold served on both the general and athletics committees until 1924. He placed a great emphasis on physical fitness and training and organised the training programme for the Geelong contestants for the Empire Games. In 1924 he was granted leave of absence from the club to travel to England to attend both the Games and the Imperial Scout Jambouree. Upon his return all his energies were then focused on the scouting movement.

Amongst the club's many wins during the premiership period, the most significant was a feat never before seen in Victorian rowing and not witnessed since: the "double double", i.e. winning the Junior and Senior Eights at the Ballarat Regatta and then again a week later at the Barwon Regatta in 1922.

The "Double Double".

But the momentum was lost with the departure of Hurst and the emphasis returned to rowing. Membership numbers gradually declined until by 1925 they had reduced to just 50, with the committee deploring the lack of members to take advantage of the magnificent facilities. With the Depression and World War Two it would be many years before the clubhouse was again full.