150th History of Yarra Yarra Rowing Club

The Club's website provides an insight into the interesting history of this club.

Established in 1871, The Early Closing Association began when employees of Melbourne drapery stores Buckley & Nunn (now David Jones, Bourke Street), and Robertson & Moffat, agreed to ‘close early’ to allow employees to spend their Saturday afternoons rowing on the Yarra. The first Club meeting was held on 23 August 1871 at the Bull and Mouth Hotel. Fifty members were enrolled, rules were passed, office bearers elected and Mars Buckley was elected as the Club's first President.

In terms of names for a rowing club, The Early Closing Association is not necessarily one that easily springs to mind. In 1873, the name Yarra Yarra Rowing Club was chosen to provide connection to the historical name for the Yarra River.

Yarra Yarra Rowing Club is also one of 18 founding clubs of the Victorian Rowing Association – the first of its kind established in the world.

The Yarra Yarra Rowing Club has a proud tradition as a community Club run solely by volunteers for over 150 years.

In celebration of its 150th anniversary, the Club produced a superb history, made possible by the meticulous efforts and contributions of Club Patron: Jim Skidmore, Club Historian: Peter Gill, and the Club Historical Committee: Gail Chatziyakoumis, Jack Chatziyakoumis, Jackie Petley, and Fiona Woodard. The history was edited by Sally Sinclair and Alison Hallahan, and designed by Bridget Hoadley.

The Club has kindly agreed to allow this website to reproduce it. It can be found through this link 150 Years 1871-2021. The book is best viewed in a 2 page view. This can be achieved through your browser settings.

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, errors may exist. Please send advice of any errors or inaccuracies by email to:

Also your comments, suggestions and photos are sought to enhance this site.

The idea for this history originated from the Olympic Rowing and World Senior Rowing Championship histories written by Andrew Guerin and Margot Foster in 1991, 1992 & 1993 for the Australian team handbooks. Andrew Guerin developed and extended these histories to the current format in 2004 for publication in 2004 and then expanded the site.

Steve Roll has been an invaluable contributor to the website in locating errors and finding Christian names of rowers. His superb work is acknowledged.

© Andrew Guerin – 2004
These contents of this history are copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted by the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. However given that the purpose of the history is to assist rowers and rowing clubs, written permission is not required for non-commercial usage by rowers and rowing clubs provided acknowledgement is made.

Disclaimer: Whilst extensive efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied, the editors take no responsibility for any loss or damage whatsoever arising from inaccuracies contained in this work.