In 1831, Leander defeated Oxford University in a race rowed from Hambleden Lock to Henley Bridge, but when it lost the match with Cambridge six years later, Lord Esher noted at a dinner that Leander was:A London Club consisting of men who had never been at the University but ... were recognised throughout England, and perhaps everywhere in the world, as the finest rowers who had up to that time been seen.However, Lord Esher also noted that they were "verging on being middle-aged men.

Its first home is assumed to have been Searle's yard, Stangate – on the south bank of the River Thames (on land currently occupied by St Thomas's Hospital).

[4] In 1860 the membership moved the club to Putney where a small piece of land was rented on which a tent was erected for housing boats.

Jenkins' winner's medal was discovered in a Belfast junk shop more than 130 years later by a member who donated it to the club, where it sits in one of the trophy cabinets.

[6] Notable members include: In Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited, the character Cousin Jasper (who "had come within appreciable distance of getting his rowing blue") wears a Leander Club tie when he first calls upon the protagonist Charles Ryder to offer advice on being a student at Oxford.

[7]:24,25 In the 1981 television adaptation, Cousin Jasper (played by Stephen Moore) is depicted wearing the Leander's "city" tie (dark blue with small pink hippopotamus motifs).