Tees Rowing Club

(With grateful thanks to Chris Kenyon for compilation)

1864
On 16th June of this year The Stockton and Hartlepool Mercury and Middlesbrough News reports “Tees Amateur Boat Club – a club of this description has recently been formed in Stockton with the double object of providing a pleasant pastime and a useful relaxation to its members”.

1865
President: Joseph Dodds. Captain: G.N. Duck. Hon Sec: John Trotter.

On the 6th March the first Annual General Meeting of Tees ABC is held at The Black Lion Hotel, Stockton. The club has 39 ordinary, 3 honorary and 9 life members. The first “Tees Regatta” is held on Thursday June 22nd. The poster for this event, kindly donated by past TRC Secretary Malcolm Lambert, hangs in the bar of the River Tees Watersports Centre.

1866
Rivals appear on the River Tees in the form of Middlesbrough Amateur Boating Club whose boathouse is some 3 miles downstream in the Newport area of that town. At this time the lowest river crossing is at Stockton Bridge - now the site of the present Victoria Bridge at Stockton. The two clubs regularly race each other on the Tees. The Stockton course being from Thornaby Wood to the Tees Boathouse, a distance of about one mile whilst the Middlesbrough course is over a similar distance on Billingham Reach. Old programmes in the Tees archives indicate that these were well attended events.

1869
Believed to be the first recorded win by the Tees club – RW Bolsover, S Holmes, JH Tarleton, JF Roberts and J Nicholson (cox) win the Stewards Plate at Durham Regatta.

1870
Tees win the Ladies Plate at York

1872
“Stockton Amateur Rowing Club” hold their Annual Dinner at The Argyle Hotel on 18th October. Ticket price is 5/- (25p).

1874
“Stockton Amateur Rowing Club” hold their Annual Dinner at The Argyle Hotel on 30th October. Tickets cost 5/- (25p). On 27th January the club buys from The Ecclesiastical Commissioners the 782 sq. yard site on which its boathouse stands. The price is £117.6s. (£117. 30p). It will occupy this site continuously until 2001 when the club moves to The River Tees Watersports Centre, - Ed).

1876
President: John Trotter. Captain: JH Tarleton. Hon Sec: WJ Gray. Hon Treas: GE Pybus. The AGM is held at The Argyle Hotel. Tees win The York Challenge Cup. The Joint Secretaries for Tees Amateur Regatta held on 7th July are R Wilson Bolsover and one Mr Albert deLande Long – no less a person than a former winner of the Wingfield Sculls while with London RC who subsequently was one of the joint founders of Dorman Long Ltd., builders of the Sydney Harbour and Tyne Bridges.

1881
Tees win York Sculls

1889
Tees win the Stewards and the City Members Plate at Durham. A joint Tees ABC/Middlesbrough ABC regatta is held at Yarm in August. The course is from the bend below the Friarage to the bend below Yarm Bridge (the same course is to be used in 1957 when the first post war Tees Regatta is held).

1890
Tyne Pairs is won.

1894
The Corporation Challenge Cup is won at Durham Regatta.

1898
A fund opened in September to buy a new racing four raises £39. 4/- (£39.20p) - just over the cost of the boat.