SHCBC Today

For many of our members, St Hilda's College Boat Club offers far more than just the chance to row whilst at Oxford. Getting up at 6am on a freezing winter morning to go and sit in a boat with eight other people has a surprising tendency to breed friendship and a sense of camaraderie, and often results in the boat club becoming a central part of our members' lives whilst they're at Oxford. Rowing offers you a chance to exercise, to de-stress, to socialise, and to attain the prestigious achievement of 'blades' if you decide to race in Torpids or Summer VIIIs.

We welcome people of any (or no!) ability, and leave it to you to decide whether you want to sacrifice your degree for rowing or to just do the odd session every now and again. That said, members will usually have the opportunity to go out on the water about two times a week, as well as to attend two indoor training sessions per week, minimum. We also have multiple socials and crewdates each term, and it is not uncommon for crews to go to the pub or to get breakfast together after outings. If you're interested in joining, click here.

SHCBC's History

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St Hilda's College Boat Club's history begins in the mid 1890s, and with it so too does the history of women's rowing at Oxford; about 100 years after men first rowed on the Isis, the first women to do so were SHCBC members. In its early years, the club's members were forbidden from wearing shorts and so instead rowed in regular skirts, having to adopt less-than-ideal solutions to prevent them catching in the boat's sliding seats.

In 1927, SHCBC members again made history when H.G. Wanklyn founded the Oxford University Women's Boat Club; that same year, she and five Hilda's rowers raced in the inaugural Women's Boat Race - beating the Cambridge team by a comfortable margin speed-wise but not so much style-wise, the other metric by which the race was being judged.

It was not until 1969, though, that the SHCBC women were permitted to row in either of Oxford's inter-collegiate competitions. In this year, they were the first women's team to compete in Summer VIIIs after having beaten the thirteen male crews who made up Division IX in their qualifying 'rowing on' performance. They unfortunately fared less well in the actual bumps races - falling from 96^th overall to 102^nd by the end of the four days of racing. This was partly due to the lack of a female division, which meant that they were racing against male crews, but also majorly due to their receipt of a harsh penalty which saw them bumped down four places on the second day of racing after failing to acknowledge a bump.
      The next two years saw similar, spoon-shaped, results; whilst SHCBC were faster than multiple men's crews during the 'rowing on' time trials, the bumps format of racing seemed to compound their disadvantage as the only all-women crew. This may well have been due to the importance that bumps-racing places on power out the gate - meaning that an overall slower team may have been able to catch them at the start of the race by putting down unsustainable levels of power. Perhaps this is why they did not participate in Summer VIIIs again until 1977, a year after the first women's division was created. The following year, 1978, a women's division was also established for Torpids. Finally able to compete against other women's boats, SHCBC's mettle paid off as they soon showed themselves to be a formidable force - spending the following decades battling it out in (mostly) Division I in both Summer VIIIs and Torpids. The peak of SHCBC's success occurred in 1981, when their 1^st boat achieved blades in both competitions, and reached 2^nd place on the river in Summer VIIIs.
      SHCBC's performance has generally been stronger in Summer VIIIs than in Torpids - where the rules allowed for greater volatility. This is well demonstrated by the 1^st boat's impressive drop down fifteen places over the four days of racing in 1987. Maybe this was a tactical move, though, as the following years saw multiple blades-winning performances as they climbed back into Division I!

Today, both SHCBC's 1st men's and women's squads are in Division III for Torpids (a particularly remarkable feat for the men, who have climbed from the bottom of Division VI since they were first admitted to St Hilda's in Michaelmas Term 2008), and Division IV and III respectively for Summer VIIIs. I do not want to speculate too much, but it would appear that the end of the women's side's dominance occurred when men were first admitted to St Hilda's - perhaps due to having to share resources with the newly-established men's side. If this is the case then you can directly help us regain our former glory by donating here...