ON June 27, it will be 170 years since Harry Clasper, his three brothers and Uncle Ned took the World Rowing Champions title from the "unbeatable" London rowers on the Thames.

It caused a national sensation.

Harry Clasper deserves to be on the school curriculum – when he died in 1870, around 130,000 people crammed the streets of Newcastle to pay their last respects. Obituaries to Harry were carried in newspapers in America and Australia, anywhere people rowed.

The Northern Echo: OARSMAN: Harry Clasper who, in 1842, won the single-sculls race at Durham Regatta
Harry Clasper who, in 1842, won the single-sculls race at Durham Regatta

He was a multiple world champion rower and his original designs for racing craft are still used today in the Olympics and Oxbridge boat races.

And, of course, he was the person The Blaydon Races was written for – he was Geordie aristocracy, although his world was a far cry from the privileged blue bloods.

Born in Dunston in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars, Harry's family moved to Jarrow in 1814 where he learned to row. Aged 15, a short time down Jarrow pit was followed by a year in the shipyards, where he learned to build boats.

Harry’s life – and so the play about him – is set with the backdrop of the industrial revolution – a truly revolutionary time. It was a time when the new and exciting industrial capitalist class cast aside the dead hand of the landed aristocracy. The North-East produced world renowned inventors like Stephenson (railways), Armstrong (hydraulics) and Swan (light bulbs).

These great brains were matched by the energy and effort of the industrial workers and the miners; coal drove the industrial revolution.

This gave rise to an influx of people from the countryside to work in burgeoning towns like Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham.

A regional identity was formed and, as towns grew, so did civic pride. This was before football became the major sport of the working class, and, as the rivers were the lifeblood of the cities, and so rowing on the Wear, the Tees and the Tyne became very popular in the 1830s and 1840s. As betting flourished, champion rowers arose. Many became professionals. Challenges were made, like prize fighting, with champion rower pitched against champion rower in a battle for civic pride.

For the vast majority of Victorians, life meant long hours working in dangerous factories or mines with poor health and safety, low wages and dreadful sanitary conditions. And then it was quickly over – the average age for North-East men and women in the mid-19th Century was 37 and 36 respectively.

Rowing provided an escape from all of this, and the rowers became the first modern sporting superstars. Races were watched by 50,000 to 100,000 people, who crowded the banks of the river. Entry cost nothing and you could identify with "your" man or rowing team.

Against this background, Harry Clasper and his brothers set out to be the best in the world. Theirs was a ten-year journey of setbacks, humiliating defeats and near misses, but Harry had an overriding determination to face down adversity and win.

But despite Harry becoming world champion in 1845, we know very little of his life, largely because of its working class nature. For example, despite being a national hero and internationally famous, Harry didn’t even get a vote until 1868 when a benefit night was held at Balmbra's Music Hall in Newcastle, where the Blaydon Races was premiered. The money raised allowed Harry to buy his first pub which gave him the property qualification he needed to vote.

Back on the water, though, once the Claspers took the crown in 1845 the floodgates opened and North East champions dominated the sport , thus starting a 26-year battle for supremacy between rowers from the Thames and the Tyne

As Charles Dickens said in 1851: “The stranger to London aquatics who wishes to see the river at its best should select one of the championship races between professional scullers, especially if London and Newcastle are pitted against each other.”

The North-East can proudly boast sporting greats like Brendan Foster, Alan Shearer, Jackie Milburn, Steve Cram and Glenn McCrory but Harry Clasper was arguably the greatest of them all.

The new play, Hadaway Harry, is a wonderful, dramatic story and a small contribution to once again celebrating the achievement of a North-East sporting hero.

The show stars Jamie Brown as Harry Clasper and will be directed by Russell Floyd who starred in EastEnders and The Bill. It has been written by Ed Waugh, who is well known for his collaborations with Trevor Wood: Maggie's End, Alf Ramsey knew My Grandfather, Amazing Grace and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Durham.

HADAWAY HARRY

Shows start at 2.30pm and 7.30pm on most days, and all tickets are £10.

June 29-July 1
Marine Trust (Boathouse), South Shields
Tel (0191) 4247788

July 2 and 3
Gala Theatre, Durham (as part of the Durham Miners Gala programme)

Thursday, July 2 - 7.30pm
Friday, July 3 - 2.30pm/7.30pm
Tel 03000 266600

July 4-5
The Low Light, North Shields
Tel (0191) 2574506

July 7-9
Discovery Museum, Newcastle
Tel (0191) 232 6789 or (0191) 2774100

July 10-11
Bede's World, Jarrow
Tel (0191) 4892106 or 4247788

For further information visit www.edwaughandtrevorwood.co.uk