I Zingari the former exclusive identity for Adelaide Rowing Club, started with the River Torrens boatshed, 1882
Originally the exclusive I Zingari, Adelaide Rowing Club's opening of the season in October on the River Torrens became one of the "required list of events" for Adelaide society. The opener shown is from 1930.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
What became Adelaide Rowing Club started in 1882 under the name I Zingari – an attempt to identify with the highly exclusive amateur British Cricket Club in London that bristled with members of the aristocracy, the gentry and the military.
The I Zingari Rowing Club kept itself exclusive by having committee members blackballing those they didn’t wish to join. The club had the South Australian governor as its patron until 1923 when Tom Bridges accepted a prior invite from the wider South Australian Rowing Association of clubs.
I Zingari grew out of a “meeting of gentlemen interested in the formation of a rowing club, being held at the Prince Alfred Hotel on Wednesday evening, 16th February 1876”. Previous exclusive rowing clubs had included the Black Swan (whose members J.W. Wright, A.E. Ebsworth and W.R. Sawers joined I Zingari) and Pelican that in 1867 was beaten at a Port River regatta by a St. Peter’s College crew stroked by George Hawker and coached by headmaster, the Rev. George Farr, himself a Cambridge University oar.
The big impetus for I Zingari club finally being launched with the opening of its boatshed on the River Torrens bank in 1882 was the completion of the Torrens concrete weir that allowed a year-old high water level. In 1881, to celebrate the weir, Adelaide City Council staged a regatta with Black Swan rowing against Port Adelaide Amateur Athletic and Boating Club (South Australia’s first in 1870), Adelaide University Boat Club (1880), and Elder, Norwood and Commercial rowing clubs.
The rowing association, formed in 1883, started organising regattas with I Zingari performing strongly and changing to Adelaide Rowing Club in 1885.
The Adelaide club was strong socially with its opening of the season in October on the "required list of events" for Adelaide society. Afternoon tea was served and a string orchestra played during club races, and members took young women, dressed in the height of fashion, for a row in one of Jolley's pleasure boats (when Jolley's shed was next door, in what became Scotch College boatshed).
The club’s bonding into a way of life included the tradition of Christmas morning reunions. Members overseas sent telegrams or Christmas cards to their Old Club to be read out at meetings. The club spirit survived flooding that wrecked its boatshed and boats in 1889 and a fire in 1931.
