Great Scot - The Scotch Family Magazine - Issue 151 September 2017 GreatScot_Internal_Sept_2017_FA | Page 90

School History
School Archivist – Mr Paul Mishura
MR PAUL MISHURA
SCHOOL ARCHIVIST
The Disher Cup
returns to Scotch
Harold Clive Disher was born at
Rosedale on 15 October 1891 and
boarded at Scotch’s old East Melbourne
campus from 1907 to 1911. Clive rowed
in the 1910 and 1911 1st VIIIs, and was a
Prefect in those years. Rowing played a
significant part in his life.
From 1912 to 1914 Clive stroked
the Ormond College and the winning
Melbourne University crews, and in
1914 he rowed in the Victorian eight.
From 1914 to 1917 Clive unsuccessfully
coached the Scotch 1st VIII.
He graduated MBBS (1916) and
MD (1921), but between receiving those
degrees, he served in World War I (1917-
20) as a captain in the Australian Army
Medical Corps of the AIF. Even during his
service, rowing played a famous part.
The 1919 Royal Henley ‘Peace’
Regatta in England was held between
Allied crews in eights to signal the
post-war revival of rowing. Clive was
the stroke and selector of the AIF crew,
which was trained by fellow Old Boy
Norman Marshall DSO MC and Bar
(born 10 February 1886, SC 1898-1901,
died 12 September 1942), and during
a break in training the crew was the
guest of William Sydney Robinson (born
2 October 1876, SC 1890, died 13
September 1963).
On 5 July 1919 Australia won the
series of races at Henley, and Clive
was presented with the King’s Cup by
Princess Anne of Connaught. The cup
had been given by King George V, and
after two failed requests by Australian
88
rowing associations in 1920 for it to
be given as a perpetual trophy for the
interstate eight-oared championship,
Clive signed a letter to the King
requesting his decision on its fate.
Through Winston Churchill, secretary of
state for the colonies, the King conveyed
his wish that the cup be used in that
competition. The King’s Cup has been
contested since 1921.
In 1912 Cliv e anonymously gave a
shield for rowing races in fours between
day boys and boarders at Scotch. It was
called the Ndalo Shield, but with the
introduction of Houses (North, South,
and Boarders) in 1917, its purpose was
foiled, and it was rowed for the last
time on 26 November 1918, despite the
first House Regatta being rowed on 16
November 1917.
In recognition of the new House
competition, Clive wrote from Belgium in
March 1919 to give his best wishes to the
Scotch crew (which won the Head of the
River) and to give a House challenge cup
for rowing to be called the Ndalo Cup
(to replace the Ndalo Shield). Perhaps it
was because there was already Disher’s
Ndalo Cup for football, or because
Disher’s long-distance instructions were
lost in translation or ignored, the Ndalo
name was not given to the cup.
House rowing was last conducted
in 1982. In or about 1983, Campbell
Riding Whalley (born 17 March 1937,
staff 1977-83, died 24 May 2012) saw
items being thrown out of the boatshed,
including the Disher Cup. He was told
it was ‘no longer relevant’ and that he
could take it if he wanted it. Campbell’s
widow, Judy, offered it to Scotch, and
on 8 May 2017 gave it to Principal Tom
Batty at the funeral of former Principal
Philip Roff.
Despite the cup being given to
Scotch and named for the House
Regatta, not a single winner has been
engraved on it. Furthermore, House
Regatta programs from at least 1938
referred to the competition being for the
Ndalo Challenge Shield and George
Nicholson Challenge Cup. It seems that
the cup was never used, and that the
existing shield continued to be used.
As even that shield is not in Archives, it
too may have been discarded as being
‘irrelevant’.
Despite the cup’s history of being
unloved, the timing of its return to Scotch
was ironic. Coming originally as it did
from a man whose rowing highlight
occurred at Henley in 1919, it returned
to Scotch before the 2017 1st VIII went
to Henley, and won its own famous
victory on 2 July 2017, becoming the
first Victorian school to win the Princess
Elizabeth Challenge Cup.
Disher continued to do great things,
working as an anaesthetist, serving
as a colonel in World War II and being
awarded the CBE, and, following his
death at the Gippsland Base Hospital,
Sale, on 13 March 1976, donating
his valuable Strathfieldsaye estate to
Melbourne University.
Great Scot Number 151– September 2017