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History of Bath Ladies Boat
Club
and City of Bath Rowing Club.
The Club was founded as Bath Ladies Boat Club in
1914 and, as an early manifestation of women's lib, the colours were the
suffragette violet and gold. It was one of the earliest women's rowing clubs
in the country and had a very active membership particularly in the 1930's
and the 1960's.
The club did little competing outside the home waters up to 1984. It
organised internal races and private competition against other clubs but did
not join the ARA. In 1984, the first men joined the club when four members of
the City of Bath Rowing Club fell out with their committee and moved up to
BLBC with a Doneratico four they had bought between themselves. Since then,
the Club has grown despite a major setback in 1985 when the river flooded up
to the level of the balcony. The Club only survived this through the efforts
of the Life members in clearing out 4 feet of mud below the Clubhouse!
Club membership rose to 20 plus in 1990; when City of Bath RC negotiated to
merge with us to become Minerva Bath RC and membership continued to rise to a
maximum of just under 100 members in total with about 60 rowing regularly.
There are now roughly equal numbers of men and women seniors with about 50
active members.
The junior section of the club is predominantly male as it is based on
Beechen Cliff School but there are some junior women and prospects of an
increasing number.
The Club competes in regattas and Heads at all levels but mainly at present
in the Novice, IM3, IM2 and Veteran categories. We have a regular round of
local regattas - Evesham, Wallingford, Hereford, Worcester, Ironbridge,
Henley Town, Oxford - and occasional crews are good enough to try for Henley
Royal and Henley Womens regattas. The Club President regularly competes at,
and wins, the national and international veterans regattas.
In 2006 we moved to our current site at Newbridge.
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