There has been good weather for the Race and there has been bad. This was one of those which fall into the ‘very bad’ categories.

This was to be Goldie’s last Boat Race and with this weather he must have been profoundly glad that he was going down.

This was the third year with J.H.D.Goldie as the Cambridge President and he had all the previous year’s crew still available, though only four of them eventually rowed.

J.G.Chambers coached them once again and produced a powerful technically excellent crew.

Oxford on the other hand did not have a good or lucky run-up to the Race. In the previous year they had been joined by R.Lesley, who had proved himself a very good stroke, but he damaged his side early in training and was withdrawn. He recovered somewhat and re-joined the crew late on to row 7 to avoid further damage to his side, but this was not his natural position and Oxford lacked an ideal stroke.

Then four days before the race Armistead who was rowing 2 also broke down and had to be replaced by C.C.Knollys, an untrained oarsman.

It was a bitter day for the Race with a near gale-force east-north-east-wind blowing and frequent stinging snow showers. Cambridge, winning the toss rather naturally chose Middlesex to get some little shelter from the weather at the start.

It was a rather flurried start with Oxford possibly not being entirely ready for the ‘Go’ and from it Cambridge took hold of the water first and pulled into the lead.

‘Settling down to their work in good style and rowing beautifully’, the Light Blues had gained a lead of 1/2 length by Bishop’s Creek, despite a 2 stroke higher rating by Oxford.

But here the Cambridge cox made two or three incomprehensible moves towards Surrey and in the resulting necessary correction the Dark Blues almost came up level again.

Cambridge now regained their balance however and by the time of the Rosebank were once again rowing well. T.H.A.Houblon the Oxford stroke made several efforts to get back on even terms but these efforts had little effect on their position and left the crew looking very tired and ragged.

Now Oxford had the better of the bend and the water and once again pulled up towards their rivals. Goldie put in a spurt at about the Doves, but this was answered by Oxford who maintained their position all the way along to the Chiswick Eyot, but at the expense of use of substantial extra energy maintaining their higher rate, which by this stage was some 5 strokes above that of Goldie.

As they came away from the Eyot Oxford made one last despairing effort and succeeded in getting within striking distance of their rivals once more, but as they did so, Goldie, for the first time took his rate up to 40 and the Light Blues shot away and passed under Barnes Bridge at least a length to the good.

But Oxford had one last spurt left on their locker, and opposite the Brewery they raised the rate to 44 and came up to overlap the Cambridge rudder once again.

But this was all they could manage and Cambridge moved out again to win by 2 lengths in 21 minutes 15 seconds.

After the race it emerged that a bolt on Goldie’s rigger had broken even before the Soap Works and thereafter, though he could set the stroke, he could apply no pressure to the stroke over the rest of the race.