Hadaway Harry

A full-length play performed by one actor to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the Tyne oarsmen. The team of brothers became “aquatic”(rowing) world champions in June 1845; a position Geordies would hold intermittently for the next 26 years either in the coxed fours, pairs or as individual scullers.

The focal point of the show is Harry Clasper - born in Dunston 1812 and died in Newcastle 1870.

Harry was regarded as the greatest rower and racing scull innovator of his generation. His legacy as a boat designer is with us today wherever rowers race (including the Olympics and the Oxbridge boat race).

Such was Harry’s popularity, when he died in 1870, 130,000 people crowded the streets of Newcastle to pay their respects. It took eight hours for the cortege to travel from Ouseburn to Newcastle Quayside, where Harry was put on a steamship and taken to his final resting place in Whickham (overlooking his beloved River Tyne).