Getting to Know the London Western Rowing Club
To honour the history, dedication and current initiatives of each rowing community, Row Ontario will be producing a series of profiles on member clubs across Ontario. Today we get to know more about the London Western Rowing Club!
London Western Rowing Club
Established: 2020
Location: London, Ont.
www.londonwesternrowing.com
Rowing in the London-area has a long history dating back to the mid-1800’s before Canada as a country even existed.
The first documented regatta took place in 1849 and was contested between local rowing enthusiasts and British soldiers from the 20th Regiment. The soldiers were stationed at what now is known as Victoria Park and the rowers competed against each other on the south branch of London’s Thames River. By 1870, the first iteration of the London Rowing Club had been formed thanks to the growing popularity of rowing in the area. In a few short years the infrastructure for rowing in the city would continue to grow, as city authorities constructed a dam and a waterworks at Springbank Park in 1878 to solve the city’s sanitation problems. The result was a huge benefit for rowing as the changes to water flow created a spectacular waterway for rowing on the main branch of the Thames River. In 1880, interest again grew as London hosted the Grand Regatta, which attracted over 3,000 spectators to watch Canadian sporting hero Ned Hanlan compete on the Thames. Three new rowing clubs were soon established in the area.
While rowing existed in some form in London over the next 70 years, not much is known about the period from 1880-1950. What is known, is that an annual regatta was hosted on Dominion Day and that the London Rowing Club became the London Bowling and Rowing Club at some point. There were also some tough times, as floodwaters heavily damaged the clubhouse of the LBRC, and the Second World War resulted in the club ceasing operations due to a lack of membership. The London Rowing Club was re-established in 1954 and 14 years later, another rowing club came onto the scene in London as the Western Rowing Club was established in 1968. The Western Rowing Club operated on Fanshawe Lake, and one of their first orders of business was to replace the outdated old barn that had previously stored boats and build a more modern shell house. Around the same time, the London Rowing Club moved about a mile east from a Pump House in Springbank Park to the Joe McManus Canoeing and Rowing Facility.
The two long-standing clubs operated independently of each other for many years, and each have their own storied histories, though there were many shared experiences between the two being in the same rowing community. In 2020, after several years of discussion the two clubs decided to merge to become the London Western Rowing Club. The merger has allowed the new club to pool its resources and create a stronger infrastructure for London’s rowing community.
“Now that the two clubs have merged, the London Western Rowing Club has two locations,” said Tom Haines, President of the London Western Rowing Club. “Our dry land facility is on Wonderland Road. We have a tank room with a four-person tank, ergs, and weights as well as a large boat bay which is great for storage. We use it primarily in the off-season and weight training throughout the year. Our other facility is shared with Western University in the conservation area at Fanshawe Lake. It consists of a boathouse as well as a small training room, and we have a great 2000m buoyed course that are members row on.”
The 2000m course is complete with starting platforms and is getting continuously upgraded, which has allowed London, in conjunction with the decommissioned London Rowing Society, to host many high-level rowing events such as the Canada Summer Games (2001), World Transplant Games, Commonwealth Rowing Association Championships, National Rowing Championships, Ontario Games, Row Ontario Championships, National Rowing Championships and the CanAmMex International Regatta, which took place in July of this year. Additionally, they’ve hosted Olympic send-off dinners, corporate rowing challenges and the FISA Coaches Conference. London was also home to the National Training Centre for the women’s national team for 32 years from 1985-2017, meaning many of Canada’s top rowers have spent time rowing on Fanshawe Lake over the last several decades.
To complete the transition from two clubs to one, many key people were involved to make the merger as smooth as possible. Haines points to club’s current board members as being integral in completing the merger as well as helping the new club start during a challenging couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott Matthews, Shane Byers, Kellye Zambon, Glen Burston, Martyn Judson and Stephen Ross were all instrumental over the last several years in helping start a new era of rowing in London.
The LWRC rowers typically get on the waters of Fanshawe Lake at the start of April and row until the end of November, although in some years they have rowed until Christmas. The merger has led to the club having a full slate of programming for almost all segments of London’s rowing population.
“The London Rowing Club was more focused on high school and junior rowing, but now that we’ve merged, our programs run from junior through to masters as well as learn to row and recreational,” said Haines. “We have spring, summer and fall competitive rowing for junior, senior and masters. We also run recreational and learn-to-row programs in the summer, with some recreational extending into the fall. The Wonderland Road facility has the tank and ergs, so there’s indoor rowing in the winter. That’s where we begin the high school rowing season which then extends into the spring.”
The depth of programming has allowed the LWRC to send crews to many regattas in Ontario this summer as rowing returned to a full schedule for the first time since 2019. LWRC rowers have participated in everything from junior and senior competitive races, to masters events, to the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta to head races now in the fall season.
In addition to their traditional rowing programs, the LWRC has also made strides in introducing the sport to underprivileged youths in the London community through the Stem2Stern program. The Stem2Stern program is a community boat building program which sees the participants build and launch a wooden vessel over the course of approximately one week. The participants develop basic hand skills as well as academic, social and emotional skills throughout the week while completing the project. Burston was a driving force in bringing the Stem2Stern program to the LWRC, and in doing so has introduced the club and the sport of rowing to many youths from non-traditional rowing backgrounds.
The club typically has 75-100 members each year, with most coming from London although some members commute to the club from other communities. They are also active in hosting regattas, with the annual WOSSA Regatta being hosted in the spring, and they have also hosted the Head of the Thames Regatta in the past as well as various CORA Regattas over the years. Club members also assist with any regattas hosted by their boathouse neighbours Western University, a relationship those goes both ways as Western also assists with LWRC regattas.
Thank you to Tom Haines and Joe Coughler for their generous contributions and help in completing this profile. Photos are property of the London Western Rowing Club.
