Robert Coombes (rower)

Robert Coombes (1808 – 25 February 1860), celebrated professional oarsman and Champion Sculler, was born at Vauxhall, Surrey.

Some of these races are as follows; Won with J Phelps an oars match, Westminster to Putney, 30 Sept 1839, beating another pair.

Won a four oar match, rowing stroke, the Champion Purse, against Liverpool July 1840.

At the Thames Regatta the same month Coombes and Wilson beat a number of pairs for the grand prize of a new wherry and a purse of sixty guineas.

In 1847 Coombes and his brother Thomas beat R & H Clasper in a pair-oared match with coxswains and for £100 a side on the Thames.

However he became the Champion of the Thames on 19 August 1846 after beating Charles Campbell easily on the Putney to Mortlake course, known as the Championship Course.

When he was asked to coach the 1852 Cambridge crew, Coombes found himself at the centre of a fierce argument about the use of professional watermen in the training of university oarsmen.

His mind failed and he was removed nine months before his death to the Kent lunatic asylum at Maidstone where he died on 25 February 1860 and was buried at the expense of his friends at Brompton Cemetery on 7 March, when the leading watermen followed his remains to the grave.

On the top slab is the representation of a wherry bottom upwards, over which is thrown a coat and badge, and by the side are broken sculls.

The figures represent four champions of the Thames : first, Robert Coombes, in his rowing costume, holding a broken scull; second, Tom Cole, of Chelsea, wearing Doggett's Coat and Badge, with the peculiar pineapple button ; third, James Messenger, of Kingston, with the coat and badge of the Thames National Regatta; fourth, Harry Kelley, of Putney, an athlete in rowing costume.