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 On
Wednesday 15th January 1873 at 8pm, eleven gentlemen met at Edward
Barron’s house in Clifftown Parade. The purpose
of their meeting was to discuss the formation of a club for “gentlemen of
known respectability”. Clearly much thought had already gone in to
the venture as George Lay, a newly qualified local solicitor presented to
the meeting a draft set of rules - many of which still survive to
this day. The club was to be named after the Princess of
Wales, later Queen Alexandra, and to be known as “The Alexandra Club”.
It is interesting to note that only one of these
gentlemen, Albert Lucking, who was also the youngest at twenty-nine years
old, had been born anywhere near Southend and clearly shows how the town
had grown over the past few years.
On 1st February a second meeting was held, this time at the newly built
Public Hall in Alexandra Street. Two rooms had
been rented there and this was to become the home of the Alexandra Club
for the next eleven years. An extra eight
gentlemen had now joined and this included two well known local doctors,
Edward Phillips and George Francis Jones. Doctor Frank Jones as he was
known to his friends was to remain a member of the club until his death
nearly fifty years later in 1921.
The
club was to be open from 10am to midnight Monday to Saturday but would be
closed on Sundays. No smoking was allowed in
the club room before 8pm. By May the club was serving wines and spirits, a
bottle of Munns Champagne cost 5 /- (25p) and “Kill the Crow Tonic” 6d a
glass! and at the end of the year there
were sixty members. The club continued to grow over
the next few years but in February 1878 a suggestion was made that would
change the club and Southend for ever. William Brighten, a solicitor who
had arrived in the town the previous year and had just joined the club
committee suggested that the club be formed in to a yacht club. The proposal was carried unanimously and the
Alexandra Yacht Club and sailing on the Southend Shore were born.
The
First Commodore was James FT Wiseman of The Chase, Paglesham who was an
oyster merchant and a very keen yachtsman who had joined the club in the
early days of 1874. The positions of Vice and
Rear Commodores were filled by John A Sparvel Bayly of Billericay and
William Brighten who had proposed the idea of a yacht club in the first
place. Six designs for a burgee were drawn up
but the one chosen was red with the Essex Arms and all races were to be
sailed entirely under the rules of the Yacht Racing Association, itself
only three years old.
Yacht
clubs were nothing new, but in the lower
reaches of the Thames they were unheard of. there
was only one other Yacht Club in Essex, The Royal Harwich Yacht Club which
had been founded in 1843 and was very soon to become involved with the
Alexandra Yacht Club as it had a race from Harwich to Southend every year
and as early as 4th June 1878 the AYC was asked if they could time in the
Harwich yachts at Southend Pier. The Royal
Harwich offering to do the same if the Alexandra ever wished to race to
Harwich, which of course they very soon did.
The
first sailing season consisted of three races,
the smaller boats had a first prize of £10 and the bigger boats £40,
the £10 prize being about the equivalent of £450 in today's money!
Over
the next few years the club flourished and in 1880 the 20 ton match with
10 entries had the largest entry on the Thames that year. Many of the local businessmen had now joined and
were enjoying racing their yachts but the time had come to look for new
premises as the two rooms in the Public Hall were not large enough to cope with the increasing membership.
1883 was to be
yet another milestone in the history of the club, the burgee was changed
to blue with the Essex Arms, and it was proposed that the house and
grounds on the Cliffs in the occupation of Mr W Chignall snr be purchased
for the club. This was done and the building
which was based on the design of an Indian Pavilion was officially opened
on Trafalgar Day 1884.
Racing continued to flourish and by 1900 the club was holding a number of
handicap races for boats from 16ft to over 60ft LOA with up to 20
entries in each class. The
club is very lucky to possess many of the original race entry cards which
in some cases have notes written on them by the Race Officer.
In 1911 the club decided to commission a one
design boat which would be able to sit on the mud flats when the tide
went out. Morgan Giles and May of Hammersmith submitted plans for an
eighteen footer with a lifting keel and optional rig of up to 220 sq ft
and this design was the one adopted but with the sail area reduced to 210
sq ft. At a meeting held on 11 Dec 1911 a
number of members agreed to purchase new boats and the legendary Thames
Estuary One Design was born. Drake Brothers of Tollesbury won the tender
and ten boats were built at a total cost of £370.3.8 for the whole fleet
and that included the price of the sails! Their first race took place on
Sat 25 May 1912.
During the First World War the club held a
number of concerts for wounded soldiers from the Queen Mary Hospital at
the Palace Hotel and although sailing was not banned as it was in the
Second World War only the TEODs continued to race and then on a very
reduced programme. In 1919 a joint committee was formed between the
Alexandra, Essex, Westcliff and Nore Yacht Clubs to try to rejuvenate a
Sailing Programme for that year. By
1920 all the clubs were organising their own Sailing Programmes but it was
suggested that once again the clubs pool their resources and the Interclub
Committee and Southend Yachting Week were founded.
Negotiations between the Interclub Committee and the Yacht Racing
Association resulted in King George V racing “Britannia” at Southend in
the first Southend Yachting Week that was held in 1921.
This fact resulted in a large number of entries
and the King won the race. His return in 1923
was just as memorable but for all the wrong reasons, “Britannia” ran
aground just inside the West Shoebury Buoy and right in front of the
“London Belle” who was carrying a large number of spectators many of them
local yachtsmen who were not racing that day and were no doubt saying to
themselves “for goodness sake tack!” contrary
to what some feared this event was not the end of Southend Yachting Week
which thrived for many more years to come.
Sailing at the AYC in the 1920’s and 1930’s also thrived both at Southend and further
afield. In 1920 Cyril Wright and John Maddison with the help of Mrs
Wright won Olympic Gold in the 7 sq m class in “Ancora” at Ostend. In 1923
the club celebrated it 50th birthday and 1925 saw the introduction of
Cadet Members and the completion of the slipway. In 1928 a special race was held to celebrate 50
years of racing at Southend and one of the boats in this race “Bluebird”
lies on her mooring off the club today. In 1931
the Cambridge University Cruising Club were invited to put up a team to
race against the AYC and this event was to last for many years with one
race at Southend and another at Ely each year. In
1933 the club was holding a total of 42 races a season, this had increased
from 25 in 1929 and gives some idea of how the sport was developing in the
early thirties. Alphonse Abrahams won the Burnham Town Cup in “Melita”
three times and by the end of the 1930s club members were winning prizes
in the RORC Offshore Events. The start of the
Second World War imposed a total ban on sailing at Southend, but the club
must also be remembered over these last two decades for its charitable
work, in 1921 Commodore Fred Gibb started the Children’s Christmas Parties
which initially paid for 250 poor children to be entertained at the
Victoria Hall, and after a short time over 1,000 children were entertained
annually at the Kursaal, it also collected £600 which was presented to
Southend Victoria Hospital and the perpetual “Alexandra Yacht Club Bed”
was placed in Sportsman Ward.
For the duration of the war the club remained open and all officers of
Naval and Military Establishments in the area were invited to become
Honorary Members. By
1946 sailing was again allowed and the club set about making preparations
for the coming season which turned out to be a very successful one.
Sailing returned to normal very quickly and in
1953 the club decided to adopt the National Twelve in addition to the TEOD
so as to encourage younger members on a limited budget.
This proved a great success and the following year the club hosted
“Burton Week” for the class which had an average of 110 starters in each
race and boats coming from all over the country. Clearly small boat racing was here to stay and
in 1955 the “505” dinghy was adopted by the club and “Little Angeline” was
built by members in the bottom shed. Despite
the addition of other classes the TEOD was still turning out eleven
starters for most races including the port to ports to Whitstable and
Queenborough and in 1957, TEOD number 57 was built. In
the same year the AYC was the first club on the shore to adopt the
“Enterprise” Class which was yet another great success, it also hosted the
“National Firefly” Week. In 1958 Ken Trent
won the 505 Cross Channel Race in “Vae Victus” and Alan and Roy Hill came
4th overall in the Enterprise Nationals in “A-B-Um”.
The 1960s were no less successful and the Fireball Class was also adopted
mainly by those progressing from the Enterprise class which now numbered
twenty starters itself. The club was to act as host to many National and
European Championships over the next few decades including Javelin, Snipe,
Marauder, Yachting World Dayboat, 470, JAVA and Solo Classes. Paul Bateman
and Alan Batley won the Enterprise Junior National Championships in 1963
in “AYCE” and Ken Trent in his cruiser “Vae Victus” won the Town Cup in
Burnham Week in 1962 and was twice overall champion of the East Anglian
Offshore Racing Association Series. Other AYC
members were also successful in EAORA events.
In November 1972 the club suffered a dreadful blow when an electrical
fault behind the bar caused the most terrible fire. The steward saw smoke
coming from the clubhouse and called the fire brigade, as they opened the
front door the whole lot went up and it was very lucky that no one was
hurt. Many of the club’s treasures miraculously
survived but it was a sight that anyone who saw it will not be likely to
forget.
By the mid 1970s the dinghy boom had begun to
drop off somewhat but the club was still holding Enterprise Open Meetings
and sending TEOD and Dayboat fleets to compete in Burnham Weeks.
It also hosted a number of other National
Meetings and the 470 European Championships which attracted over seventy
boats was won by two identical twins.
In 1980 the club was the first on the shore to host an “Open Day” when
local schools and non members were invited to come and try sailing, it was
a great success. It was
also the year that Commodore Dai Williams won the much coveted Velsheda
Trophy in his Estuary “Alexandra” the first serving Commodore ever to have
done so, he then went on to become the Jaguar 25 National Champion in
1983. With the lull in dinghy racing the Cruiser Fleet began to increase
and additional racing and cruising events were introduced for them. There was also a new
sport called Windsurfing which was beginning to take off and the AYC
became the headquarters of the Essex Windsurfing Club.
The
last twenty years have been a mixture of racing and cruising from the
clubhouse but as has always been with the AYC they have been represented
further afield as well, not just at Burnham Week and up the East Coast but
in other places too. In the last few years the
club burgee has been seen flying proudly from the mast head in Les Sables
d’Olonne near La Rochelle and in Swedish waters, around Britain and
Ireland and everywhere else in between.
Article
kindly supplied by Caroline Gibb
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