Vol 3, No 3
Articles in this issue
- At the meeting of Monday 22nd March 1880 Louis Alfred Wynne of Warnford Rectory and Magdalen College, G. Berkeley Hill, J. J. Anderson, John Scott and Edmund Farmer were elected members, P. Marchand's resignation accepted, and it was decided not to continue the Club depôt at Kew. A passage inadvertently omitted from the 8th March notice is supplied: T. Godlee, M. D. Rucker junr., W. A. Smith and F. M. Williams were elected to represent the Club on the Bicycle Union for 1880.
- Ashley Barrett, Hon. Treasurer to the Fund, asks to hear from members who mean to be present on April 6th at "The Three Bucks", Gresham Street, where the testimonial will be presented at about 8 p.m. after a steak supper at 6.30 at 2s. a head. Ten further subscribers are acknowledged - Nops, the two Meyers, Francis, Heath, Ryan, Bacon, Politzer, Brown and Langridge - bringing the total received to £35 8s. 6d.
- Hon. Sec. Herbert R. Boyce reminds members of the Evening Race Meeting at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday 5th May at 6 p.m. Members are admitted on production of their Club badge and receive one free lady's ticket with this number of the Gazette; instead of sending admission tickets round to everyone, shilling tickets are to be had from the Captain, Hon. Sec. or any Committee-man and at the principal bicycle agents.
- E. C. Koch, Hon. Sec. O.S., reports that several tickets used by members' friends are still unpaid for and asks members to attend to it so that the accounts of the last concert can be closed.
- The La Crosse Clubs of London have united to hold athletic sports at Stamford Bridge on 22nd May, including a One-Mile Bicycle Handicap with a first prize worth £10 10s. framed by M. D. Rucker jun., entries to be taken by F. Jolly. The Clapton club, which already counts several L.B.C. men, will play one evening a week through the summer at Copper Mill Lane, Walthamstow - "a nice little run for a summer evening".
- "The Treasurer's Deputy" notes that March is drawing to a close with only about a third of the Club paid up, so that under Rule 18 the Committee will shortly be empowered to erase the names of some 150 members, and repeats that the Treasurer is Francis Godlee of Whip's Cross, Walthamstow, with P.O.O.s payable at Lombard Street and cheques crossed "Imperial".
- A meeting convened by circular at the Guildhall Tavern on Friday the 12th ult., with Theo. Godlee in the chair, resolved on J. Williams jun.'s motion seconded by W. Wyndham that a dramatic society be formed in connection with the L.B.C. Rules were drawn up and Ashley Barrett, C. C. Fitch, A. Henry, M. D. Rucker jun., J. Williams jun. and Fred W. Morris (hon. sec. and treasurer) appointed a provisional committee until a general meeting at the end of the summer; the annual subscription is five shillings.
- Covers for binding Vol. II are now ready, and members wishing to use them should send their numbers at once to the Publishers at 35, Eastcheap, E.C.
- Dr. Rufus apologises for his very careless misquotation of Mr. Sewell's paper.
- The tabulated meets for April 3rd, 10th and 17th across the N.E., N.W., W., S.W. and the two S.E. divisions: Enfield, Great Stanmore, Ockham and Down on the 3rd; a general convergence of the W., S.W. and S.E. men on Ewell on the 10th; and Abridge, Shenley, Harefield, Newlands Corner and a 4.45 paper chase at West Wickham on the 17th, with the joint districts named against each.
- S.E. District: nineteen men rode to Caterham via Wickham on 13th March for tea at the "Railway Hotel", and Stephen P. Smith has agreed to act as the District Captain's substitute in the Blackheath division; the club run of 20th March went to Downe for cheap tea at Mr. Weaver's "George Inn" and ended with an accident to the District Captain. The W. District's opening meet drew only Law and Barnett; the N.E.'s only seven men, who took the vile Highbeech road to Epping; the S.W.'s was diverted from sandy Staines to Ripley and is reported three times over, with Buckler and Henry's separate 29-mile ride to Staines appended; and the N.W. men ran to Ridge on the 13th and to Watford by the Kingsbury and Kenton lanes on the 20th.
- "L'Homme qui Rit" on the strange pleasure of a twenty-mile grind into a hard N.E. wind that would have pleased Kingsley; on the S.W. men sending in three separate accounts of one run; on Surrey and Middlesex enforcing the lamp law; on the Captain travelling down by the mail to reach the "White Lion" at 12.15 a.m.; on the Post Office forwarding a letter addressed from the United States to the "Lon. Bicycle Club, England"; on the Treasurer writing from Japan that the jin-rik-sha is "a new kind of bicycle"; on the N.E. District Captaincy being in commission under Alfred Fowler and Theo. Godlee; and on the heartbreaking stones near Melksham and Devizes.
- The season's list from April 24th - the Surrey B.C. at Kennington Oval, the Alert B.C. at the Alexandra Palace and the Royal School of Mines two-mile handicap - through the L.B.C. Evening Race Meeting on May 5th, the 100-mile Bath Race on May 17th, the La Crosse Club mile handicap on May 22nd, C.U.Bi.C. v. L.B.C. on May 29th and the L.B.C. Annual Race Meeting on June 19th, to the L.A.C. Winter Meeting at Stamford Bridge on November 6th.
- The season's first bicycle race meeting, a One Mile Handicap on Saturday 20th March with champion John Keen as judge and G. P. Coleman (L.B.C.) as timekeeper. Heats fell to P. C. Hebblethwaite of the L.A.C., to H. L. Cortis from scratch on a new Surrey Machinists mount despite being audibly out of form, and to J. F. Griffith of the Surrey B.C. by one foot, with W. T. Thorn walking over and taking a flying mile in 2 min. 56 sec. In an exceptionally close final Thorn won by six inches, Cleaver and Hebblethwaite dead-heating for second and Cortis fifth.
- S.E. District Captain F. M. Williams ran into new metal while spurting down a hill on the way to Downe on March 20th and came a severe cropper. Stunned and bleeding, he was carried by three of his men to Keston Court, where Mr. R. Taylor's family attended to him, and driven home in a trap furnished by Mr. Weaver, the old-rider landlord of the "George" at Downe; the wounds are only superficial.
- "A. B." rides from Lewisham to Maidstone and back to Caterham on Saturday 13th March, running three miles out of Farningham into the track of a thunderstorm that had swept a ten-mile belt of country and ploughing eight miles of mud and stones before hard road three miles beyond Wrotham; at Maidstone he takes a frugal meal at a coffee-house and explores the free museum's Roman relics, returning by Westerham and Godstone to find the S.E. contingent at tea at the "Railway Hotel".
- Thorn, Coleman and Herbert leave Surbiton on a dull morning with a chilly N.E. wind, warm the pace down the Portsmouth road to Ripley and go on by Guildford and Godalming up Hindhead - the road "as smooth as asphalte" - reaching Liphook, 33 miles, in three hours. After dinner they run by bye-lanes near Woolmer Forest to Farnham and over the Hog's Back, passing a man whose "Extraordinary" had shed its handle a yard or two from the top of Guildford High Street, and finish with tea at Ripley and a sharp run home to Surbiton at seven, 72 miles in all.
- Theo. Godlee's account of the ride up from Bath. Only four of the ten expected reached the "White Lion" - the Editor, A. D. Butler, O. Thorn and the Captain, who came down by the mail at midnight. A collision on a slippery hill and a treadle that refused to move cost half an hour at a blacksmith's; Gibbs joined them at Marlborough with the news that no L.B.C. men were forward but Smith; Butler came quietly over his handles in a gritty road near Hungerford; and after dinner at Newbury the seventeen miles to Reading proved the quickest of the day, where Barrett, Gibbs and Godlee took the train while Butler and Thorn rode on into the dark.
- Two letters. "W. X. W." answers "Momus" on the District Challenge Cup: if no district would be impudent enough to challenge the S.E., the change would lose one of the races most pleasing to visitors, a last-moment challenge could leave the officers a ten-mile race short or extra, and there are always the chances of war - as in the year Smith fell in the last lap, raising the still-undecided question whether a man who runs to the winning post with his machine carried after him has completed the distance. "Amythaon" wants club runs discussed in the Gazette before the Meet Cards are made rather than grumbled at afterwards, thinks three General Meets a season enough given how inconvenient early Saturday starts are for Eastern men in business, and proposes that District Captains list members' spare machines available on loan so that men can attend another district's meet without carting a bicycle across London.