Tributes following death of key figure behind Henley’s River & Rowing Museum

CHRIS Dodd, rowing correspondent, newspaperman, author and one of the founders of the former River & Rowing Museum in Henley, has died aged 84.

A man dedicated to the craft of journalism, his deft writing was boosted by his historical knowledge, wry humour and quiet authority.

When he started reporting on rowing for the Guardian in 1970, Chris was apprenticed to a generation of correspondents whose insider-heavy prose and uncompromising opinions then dominated the sport’s coverage.

However, Chris did not feel obliged to be what he called a “barstool coach” and he avoided the jargon and dogmatism of older writers. This, combined with his eye for historical perspective and his fondness for gossip and anecdote, meant that his writing appealed not just to committed rowers but also to general readers.

Christopher John Dodd was born in Bristol in 1942 and educated at Clifton College, a school with a liberal reputation appropriate for a future journalist on the Guardian newspaper.

He went on to Nottingham University, initially rowing before turning his energies to journalism as editor of the student newspaper.

In 1965, Chris joined the Guardian as a sub-editor, beginning his career in the paper’s old Manchester offices that sat atop hot-metal printing presses in the basement, machines which shook the building when they ran.

Later moving to the London office, he would spend 25 years at the Guardian, working across features, sport and city departments.

Chris began writing about rowing almost by accident when he interviewed the newly arrived British national coach, Czechoslovakian Bohumil “Bob” Janousek in 1970.

As Chris later wrote, they were both outsiders determined to understand the sport from within. Both succeeded, Janousek revolutionised British international rowing and Chris became one of the sport’s most trusted chroniclers.

A man of strong journalistic ethics, in 1987 Chris was covering the controversial Oxford Boat Race “mutiny” when some of the Oxford crew, respectful of his knowledge, asked him for some public relations advice. He declined saying that it would be unethical as he was “an observer, not a player.”

Also a prolific author specialising in rowing history, Chris’ books covered Henley Royal Regatta, the Boat Race, World Rowing, London Rowing Club and the Watermen’s Company.

He also produced biographies of three great rowing coaches including (with Hugh Matheson) Leander Club’s Jurgen Grobler.

A member of Leander and a great lover of Henley and its regattas, for many years Chris had a pied-à-terre in Ancastle Green, until illness forced its sale.

As a journalist who said that he was “wedded to the printed page”, Chris was an admirer of the Henley Standard, citing it as a rare surviving example of a well-written local newspaper. He was particularly pleased by the Standard’s coverage of rowing.

However, it was Chris’ part in the founding of Henley’s River and Rowing Museum (RRM) that should have been his greatest legacy.

Conceived in the Eighties with David Lunn-Rockliffe, of the Amateur Rowing Association, Chris played a central role in securing the Mill Meadows site, engaging an architect, curating its content from nothing and finding a generous sponsor in Martyn Arbib.

Opening in 1998, the museum itself won many accolades including being ranked among the world’s top 50 museums by TheTimes newspaper in 2013.

Between 1998 and 2025, the museum was visited by more than two million people and amassed a collection of 35,000 objects.

Sadly, it was not to last and after 27-years the museum closed for economic reasons last year, a cause of enormous sadness to Chris.

Chris died after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He leaves a civil partner, Liz.

Up to his death, Chris was frail but lucid, recalling in detail the structure of a book that he had in progress, a writer to the end.

Christopher John “Chris” Dodd, journalist, author and historian, born Bristol, 14 February 1942; died, London 25 January 2026.