Sydney Rowing Club

Sydney Rowing Club is the oldest rowing club in New South Wales, founded at a meeting at the Oxford Hotel in Sydney on 6 March 1870 with the former mayor George Thornton as its first president. Its first clubhouse stood beside the site of the present Sydney Opera House; it has held its site at Abbotsford Point on the Parramatta River since 1874 and moved all its facilities there in 1947. Founded on the amateur principle that excluded manual labourers, it admitted only men until 1993. The club won the state association premiership pennant eight years running from 1880 and produced sculling champions such as Bobby Pearce and Merv Wood. Since Amsterdam in 1928 it has had a rower in every Australian Olympic rowing squad except Barcelona in 1992.