FEATURE
ROWING INTO THE HISTORY BOOKS Thanks to an exceptional donation, Homerton offers a fees award to an academically gifted woman graduate student rowing at international level. We profile the first holder of the Horobin Award, named after the Principal who in the nineteenth century established women’s rowing at Homerton.
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HOMERTONIAN
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n 15 March 1927, two crews of eight women broke convention to race on the Isis. On one level, the contest was between rival universities, but, much more profoundly, both teams were, together, contesting centuries of inequality. The riverbank brimmed with a hostile crowd, chanting against their ‘unladylike’ behaviour. Fast-forward 88 years, and another set of young women is waiting for the starting flag, but this time the scene is very different. This time it is Tideway on the Thames; the same course, on the same day, and with the same sponsors’ funding as their male counterparts. In the Cambridge boat is Homertonian Daphne Martschenko. The two boats bob side by side on a choppy Thames, and seconds before the flag is dropped, all is quiet on the riverbanks of London. “Time stands still, because you know – and your competitors know – that the first stroke is the most important of the race. All