A 'dirty moleskin crowd': The footscray rowing eight, amateurism and the manual labour issue at the annual Melbourne Regatta, 1880-1886
Darren Arthur
What the paper says
In 1882, the Footscray Rowing Club (FRC) eight-oared crew, labelled the 'dirty moleskin crowd', claimed outright possession of the greatest amateur trophy in Australian sport, rowing's 'W. J. T. Clarke Challenge Cup', after winning it for the third consecutive year at the Annual Melbourne Regatta. The feat catapulted the FRC to the pinnacle of the rowing fraternity in the colony, helping it achieve widespread acclaim. However, the postscript to the achievement was just as captivating and had far greater ramifications for Victorian rowing, not the least of which were ructions associated with the contentious manual labour question. This paper draws on newspaper accounts to address various themes affecting Victorian rowing and society in general, including the amateur-manual labour debate, community and civic pride, masculinity and social deference.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.00 × 0.4 = 0.00 |
| M · momentum | 0.20 × 0.15 = 0.03 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.