| 1st Women's Boat Race | |
| Winner: | Oxford |
| Winning Time: | 3 minutes 36 seconds |
| Overall: | 0–1 |
| Umpire: | T. H. Henn (Cambridge) J. G. Geoffreys (Oxford) |
| Nextseason: | 1929 |
The inaugural Women's Boat Race took place on 15 March 1927. The contest was between crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and held on The Isis in Oxford.
The Times reported that "large and hostile crowds gathered on the towpath", while The New York Times stated "a crowd of fully five thousand persons was on hand as a willing cheering section".[1] [2] [3] The crews were forbidden from racing side-by-side, and the winners were judged "rowing down stream for style and back again for speed" along the course "from the Free Ferry from the top of Iffley Reach to the Keble barge", a distance of approximately 0.5miles.[4] The Cambridge crew wore "white jumpers and chocolate shorts and stockings" while Oxford sported "white and dark blue shorts".[3]
The judges for the contest were T. H. Henn (representing Cambridge) and J. G. Geoffreys (representing Oxford). Reports differ as to the judges' opinions on style: one suggests they failed to agree on a winner,[4] another indicates that they deemed the style of each crew to be equal.[3] As a result, the judges based the result on speed:[4] the race was won by Oxford in a time of 3 minutes 36 seconds, beating Cambridge by 15 seconds. The next Women's Boat Race would take place two years later.[5]
| Seat | Oxford | Cambridge | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | College | Name | College | ||||
| D. Morely | A. M. Walmsley | ||||||
| 2 | C. S. Joris | W. Leverton | |||||
| 3 | D. E. Gibbs | V. Brown | |||||
| 4 | S. Longmore | P. M. Havers | |||||
| 5 | L. Shaw | B. Hutchinson | |||||
| 6 | D. G. Cullen | P. K. Rich | |||||
| 7 | M. Winder | E. Rickey | |||||
| M. H. Brown | C. D. England | ||||||
| H. G. Wanklyn | St Hilda's | T. Rhys | |||||
| Source:[6] | |||||||