Match—Toronto Harbour, circa 1870s, captures the atmosphere in which Bob Berry competed, The rower may, perhaps, even be somewhere in the scene.
Robert Berry competed against the leading rowers of his day including Richard Tinning’s son, Richard, who once cajoled Berry into practising starts all morning before a race in Lachine, Quebec, and then easily beat him in the afternoon. On another occasion John Scholes, who ran the Athlete Hotel on Yonge Street, outraced Berry over a three-mile course near the northern elevator on Toronto Bay. According to Hunter, “Mr. Scholes at the start of the race proceeded to induce Mr. Berry into an argument which reached such heights of passion that Berry was left mumbling to himself.” Berry practised with the great Ned Hanlan himself though their age difference made a challenge unlikely by the time Hanlan was world champion.
In 1867 Berry was permitted to compete only in the fisherman’s race. He lost. His crew “that has distinguished itself in previous years, was poorly handled, and under proper management should have taken the race,” the Globe reported.
A WATERFRONT HERO
In 1872 Henry O’Brien, son of the Toronto Rowing Club’s first captain, established the Argonaut Rowing Club. It became the new elite organization dedicated to making rowing an amateur sport, one that excluded professional fishermen like Berry.
The next generation of rowers like Ned Hanlan found supporters among Toronto’s gambling fraternity. There would be no new “Bob Berry” because the international rowing realm in which Hanlan now moved was virtually all white.
There was at least one moment of honour left for Berry. On December 7, 1868, a heavy gale and snowstorm wrecked the schooner Jane Ann Marsh near the Toronto Island. Stripping to their underwear and setting out in a small skiff while the storm still raged, Berry and William Ward struggled to reach the floundering ship. Three times their own boat capsized and the careening skiff gashed Berry’s head.
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