The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 7

Joe Morley
Photo by Jordy Searle
among the upper reaches of Victorian society:
converts to canoeing included Edward VII, the
Duchess of Sutherland and Robert Louis
Stevenson, who went on a similar voyage of his
own in 1878, which resulted in the book An
Inland Voyage. MacGregor himself would go on
to own a succession of at least half a dozen
more Rob Roy type canoes, and take them on
voyages to the Baltic and Middle East, publishing
three more books on his travels.
To claim that Rob Roy invented the modern
sport of canoeing is no exaggeration. He was
clearly a dynamo of energy. In addition to his life
as a kayaker, he was a mover and shaker of
Victorian London. He
was a

moderate, but very devout, Christian (he was in
fact secretary of the Protestant League no less
and believed in a ‘muscular Christianity’ based
around exploits like kayaking), a widely-published
travel writer (he wrote of his voyages in Punch
and the London Record) and chairman of the
Humane Society.

Shoe-Black Brigade

He moved in high circles counting Charles
Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson among his
friends, both of whom he persuaded to take up
paddling. More than anything, MacGregor was
instrumental in social reform in Victorian
London, by association with another important
friend, the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. Together
they set up the Shoe-Black Brigade to offer
better education prospects to the

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