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boat. In the early years, when the
Derwenthaugh crew was racing against crews from the Thames, it was doing so in narrow-beamed boats with outriggers whereas the Thames crews were in wide beamed boats. The sight of Claspers boats winning races helped to establish the use of outriggers as a standard in rowing.
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At the time when
Clasper was starting to design racing boats, the standard boat hull was constructed of a number of strakes (or planks), with a keel projecting from bottom of the hull. Together with Matthew Taylor, another Tyneside boat-builder, he worked to reduce the surface area and drag. They did
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Wooden outriggers had first been tried out on the Tyne in 1828, fitted to a sculling boat. Two years later, iron outriggers were fitted to a boat. It cannot be claimed that
Clasper originated the idea of the outrigger, but he saw its potential in allowing the boat designer to produce a slimmer faster
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for a stake of £150 a side. The Thames crew gained an easy victory. The
Derwenthaugh crew's boat, St Agnes, although much narrower than the Thames boat (29 inches as against 40 inches), was 60% heavier than the Thames boat. Clasper realised that he needed to design and build a much lighter boat for
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In 1845 Clasper took another four-oared boat, the Lord
Ravensworth, to the Thames Regatta. This latest boat was a further improvement on The Five Brothers. The crew was all Claspers, consisting of Harry at stroke, brothers William and Robert with uncle Ned, and brother Richard as cox. The
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Derwenthaugh crew won the
Champion Fours, beating two other crews, including one from London. They were given the title of four-oared "World Champions". The crew were given a hero's welcome on returning to Newcastle. Clasper then sold the Lord Ravensworth for £80.
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After a while, his family moved back to
Dunston and Clasper became employed as a coke burner and wherryman for the Garesfield Coke Company at nearby Derwenthaugh. His work as a wherryman would also serve him well in later life. Clasper then worked for a while at
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Clasper realised early in his rowing career that, to produce faster racing boats, it was necessary to reduce the area of the hull in contact with the water, so as to produce less drag. At the time, boats were wide in the beam because the oar was attached to the
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During his time racing and coaching he continued to be a pub landlord, and ran a succession of pubs, including the Skiff pub in
Gateshead and the Clasper Hotel on Scotswood Road, Newcastle. He moved on from there and finally settled at the Tunnel Inn,
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Prior to that, Clasper's crews, and other
Tyneside oarsmen had developed a technique of sliding on their fixed seats so as to make some use of their legs in producing a longer more powerful stroke. This became known as the "traditional Tyne stroke".
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Clasper formed a racing crew with his brother
William and two other men. Harry rowed as stroke (the oarsman who sits nearest the stern, opposite the cox and who sets the stroke rate) and another brother, Robert, acted as
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this by placing the keel inside the hull of the boat and constructing the hull with a single strake on each side. The surface would then be given several coats of varnish to give as smooth a finish as possible.
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In 1836 he married his cousin Susannah Hawks, a member of a wealthy family. Their wedding certificate shows Clasper signing with a cross, as he could not read or write, whilst Susannah signed her name.
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In the next fifteen years, Clasper, with a variety of other crewmembers, won the Champion Fours at the Thames Regatta six further times. His crewmembers included his eldest son, John Hawks Clasper and
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Clasper became a rowing coach using his experience of many races. He recommended rest, light and regular meals, walking and running, as well as two sessions on the water each day. He coached
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on Tyne claimed that Clasper had copied the idea from him, a claim that Clasper denied. It was, perhaps, unfortunate for Jewit that Claspers fame meant that he received the credit.
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Clasper took over the tenancy of the Skiff Inn, Derwenthaugh, and in addition to being a pub landlord, he began to build boats on the same site. He built two
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The Derwenthaugh crew was dominating the rowing scene on the Tyne and the logical progression was to challenge a crew from the
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It is difficult to say who was the first to initiate the idea of a single-strake hull. Robert Jewitt a boat-builder of
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He died on 12 July 1870, probably of a stroke. For his funeral, the coffin was transported from the Tunnel Inn,
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for himself, the Hawk in 1840 and the Young Hawk in 1841. With the latter he won the
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in England. He was an innovative boat designer who pioneered the development of the
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race on the Tyne in 1867, when he was 55; his younger opponent beat him easily.
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He was the first of three well-known Tyneside oarsmen, the other two being
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Clasper had already started to build a new four-oared boat, called
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English professional rower & boat builder (1812-1870)
430:"Harry Clasper: the Durham miner turned rowing champion"
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Harry Clasper Grave at St Mary’s Whickham, Gateshead
547:Rowing: A Way of Life – The Claspers of Tyneside
138:(5 July 1812 – 12 July 1870) was a professional
522:"Celebrations for Tyneside hero Harry Clasper"
452:"Harry Clasper: Tyne rowing legend remembered"
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332:. He ran this until his death in 1870.
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432:. The Northern Echo. 11 July 2020
305:For many years he was a champion
187:Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead
579:Harry Clasper — Hero of Tyneside
540:Harry Clasper, Hero of the North
213:Ironworks around the mid-1830s.
45:relies largely or entirely on a
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589:Newcastle and Gateshead history
639:19th-century British sportsmen
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584:North East Rowing information
197:. Later his family moved to
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181:Harry Clasper was born in
567:Friends of Rowing History
211:Hawks, Crawshay, and Sons
649:Sportspeople from Jarrow
634:Boat and ship designers
482:Whitehead, Ian (2002).
248:Race against the Thames
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193:, a mile upriver from
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629:British boat builders
360:Effect on boat design
352:to St Mary's Church,
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136:Henry (Harry) Clasper
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486:. Portcullis Press.
58:improve this article
624:English male rowers
524:. 24 February 2017.
309:on the Tyne and in
508:"Chambers, Robert"
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484:The Sporting Tyne
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382:Shell hulls
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413:References
365:Outriggers
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191:River Tyne
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262:Lemington
195:Gateshead
54:talk page
456:BBC News
372:gunwales
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350:Ouseburn
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315:sculling
311:Scotland
203:firedamp
148:Tyneside
114:May 2021
549:, 2003.
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