The first accession of 2024 is a Secretary’s Book for Magdalen Hall Boat Club, starting in 1868 and ending in1880. It is a handsome volume in good condition, covered with parchment and fastened with a metal clasp. It is unique in covering the period of transition as Magdalen Hall was incorporated as Hertford College in 1874 and a new Boat Club was formed in 1875.
‘Seven Hundred Years of an Oxford College (Hertford College, 1284-1984) ed. Andrew Goudie (1999) contains a short article on the early history of the Hertford Boat Club which refers to a lost Secretary’s Book known as ‘The Old Book’. The introduction in the second Secretary’s Book, written by the then Secretary Edward Buck, summarises the earlier history of the Club as recorded in the lost volume. From these details it seems that our recently acquired item is the missing first Secretary’s Book.
There are few entries for the years 1868 to 1875 and the Magdalen Hall Boat Club does not seem to have been particularly busy or indeed successful. In 1871 they competed in the Summer Eights race and did manage to bump St Edmund’s Hall, noting that this was the first bump made by Magdalen Hall for 20 years.
There are a number of blank pages left after the Summer term in 1874 and the entries do not start again until summer term 1875, after the changeover from Magdalen Hall to Hertford College:
At the first full meeting of the Club in autumn 1875 the main business seemed to be choosing the new Club colours of crimson and white. There is much discussion of what rate the Club subscriptions should be set at, and whether they should ‘in future subscribe to Clasper instead of Salter’ for boat maintenance. More importantly by the next Eights Week in May 1876 the Secretary recorded that the new crew had improved considerably and risen four places. By November 1877 a long held wish had been fulfilled with the acquisition of a new College barge.
Henry Disney & Edward Buck
Below is one of the earliest photographs in the College archives, taken in 1879 and showing a group of undergraduates. Two of these students, Henry William Disney and Edward Buck, were dedicated members of the Boat Club Committee and rowed in numerous competitions for the College and University. Henry Disney is seated 2nd from the left on the middle row and Edward Buck is at the far right hand end of the same row. Richard Dawson, who is standing on the back row, was also a member of the Boat Club Committee and appears in many of the crew lists.
Edward Buck matriculated at Hertford College in 1876, a brilliant mathematician who won the Herschel Astronomy Prize in 1881. He was Treasurer and Secretary of the Boat Club for most of his time as an undergraduate and for a period subsequently. He went onto become a schoolmaster, working in Barbados for a number of years, but eventually at Christ’s Hospital in Horsham. He continued a close personal connection with the College for many years.
Henry William Disney matriculated at Hertford in 1877, also studying mathematics and taking his BA in 1880. He was a musician and keen sportsman, taking part in athletics as well as many rowing activities. In April 1879 he rowed for Oxford in the Boat Race against Cambridge University, the first member of Hertford College to do so. He went on to become a Barrister at Lincoln’s Inn in 1884 and published several legal textbooks, including ‘The Law of Carriage by Railway’ and ‘The Elements of Commercial Law’.
The Secretary’s Book records that Disney was elected Captain and Buck the Treasurer of the Club in the Autumn term of 1878. The following year (1879) Disney was re-elected as Captain and Buck became the Club Secretary. Disney was one of the Oxford team which competed unsuccessfully in the University Boat Race that year. Buck had more success, being on the winning crew of the University Boat Race in 1881, along with two other Hertford men.
Disney and Buck continued their connection with Hertford long after they graduated. Disney’s own son, Anthony, matriculated at Hertford in 1922 and was Secretary of the Club from 1922 to 1924. Buck continued his involvement with the Boat Club for many years, and the College Magazines record that the ‘Old Oxford Blue Mr Buck’ was still coaching the rowing crews well into the 1920s.
Building on Success
The years after the formation of the new Boat Club demonstrate how much the Club had improved its performance since the old Magdalen Hall days, encouraged by the enthusiastic support of Principal Henry Boyd. The races held during Eights Week in May 1878 shows the Club rising steadily up the ranks:
‘It is hardly possible to comment on the success of this eight. We never had a hard race, and there is no doubt we could have gone up many more places had there been more nights, as we were universally allowed to be one of the best and fastest eights on the river. A great deal of our success was due to the pains taken by Mr Lamb in coaching us, & to the assistance given him by Mr Jackson. To both these gentlemen the Boat Club owes its best thanks. We rowed in a new boat built for us by Clasper which suited us admirably’
Secretary’s Book, Minutes for Summer Term 1878
Flushed with success, in the summer of 1878 the committee decided that the members had improved enough to send a crew, including Disney, to the Henley Regatta. It’s possible that their earlier success in the Summer Eights race meant that they overestimated their abilities; as their luck ran out on the second day of the Regatta, resulting in an ignominious finish to the race. This was due in no small part to a poor choice of crew members, who struggled towards the end of their race with Columbia College:
‘Here Fenner who was very much overstrained, & indeed ought never to have rowed in this race, either fainted or lost his head, and ran them into the bank’.
Secretary’s Book, Minutes for Summer 1878
The newspaper account of the Regatta, carefully pasted into the Secretary’s book, puts it rather more kindly:
Head of the River 1881
The last entries in the Secretary’s Book finish in the Autumn term of 1880 but the Club continued onwards and upwards, culminating in their triumphant success in Eights Week of May 1881. Edward Buck rowed for the winning team although sadly for Disney he had already graduated and left Oxford by this point. Principal Boyd could not resist sending off a telegram to his friend John Egerton and former member of Brasenose to announce Hertford’s prowess. Egerton was not impressed at such a lack of tact:
‘I wonder whether you expect me to thank you for sending me that wretched telegram on Saturday night… the bump having taken place at the winning post I could have inferred for myself the fact of a fine race without being reminded of it by a telegraph boy.
I must be content that we have been bumped by Hertford College & not by “Magg’len ‘all” – I cannot well imagine a greater testimonial to the change which has come over the latter institution in its improved condition under your care, than the fact of your boat being second and probably head. Now that our chance of leadership is gone, I would sooner see you head than any other college – so if you do go up, I will in spirit join your bump supper in an extra good cup of tea. If you don’t go up I must console myself with the reflection that you probably will be more disappointed by the blight of your fond hopes, than rejoiced by the fact of having bumped Brasenose.’
Letter from John C Egerton to Principal Henry Boyd, 23 May 1881 [Hertford College Archives]
A postcard sent to Disney announced the news and summoned him back to Oxford to ‘make a row’:
It’s safe to assume that Disney and Buck were present at the celebrations, including fireworks and a large bonfire whereby the students ‘burnt their boats’, which took place in Hertford Quad on the night of Wed 25th May. Quite apart from the perceived danger of fire spreading to the Radcliffe Camera and the Bodleian, the Brasenose crew who had broken into Hertford knocked down the College Porter. Principal Boyd seems to have taken a lenient view of the students’ activities, as he explained in subsequent telegrams to Egerton. Egerton himself wrote that he was sure the Brasenose crew only wanted to congratulate the winners, although he hoped that they were not drunk and had apologised to the Porter.
We are delighted to have acquired this volume for the College archives. The lost Secretary’s Book fills an important gap in our existing collections and is a lovely illustration of College life during this significant period of change for Magdalen Hall and Hertford College.
