William Biffen had been a distinguished professional oarsman, a winner of the “Doggett” coat and badge, and a Queen’s waterman. Under Biffen’s guidance BS in 1880 entered the newly introduced Public Schools four-oared Challenge Cup at Henley……they beat Radley and Cheltenham and went on to easily win the final against Magdalen College School, Oxford. The following year, 1881, they won again against seven crews.
One story, which has gone down in the annals of Henley history was to do with the rule against sliding seats, which was supposed to be bad for boys, in the Public Schools’ races at Henley. Biffen looked upon this rule to be overcome. “How can we get round it?” he asked. “We are not to use sliding seats, but there is nothing against sliding seatings”. So, the leather cover on the outside of the seat was well greased and the boys rowed upon seats about twelve inches wide. They won easily. Rather unpleasant things were said about the school for some time, but they soon lived it down. The Henley stewards deigned to take notice by saying that fixed seat races had to have seats of six inches only!
The Rowing Almanack, which had become the mouthpiece of the Amateur Rowing Association at that time stated that Bedford “complied with the letter but broke the spirit of the law which obliged them to row on fixed seats…. they had long wooden ones and slid on them with grease… this is a bit of sharp practice which ought not to be countenanced by the authorities of the school as it is not likely to conduce to the development of a nice sense of honour amongst the lads themselves and may be regarded as on a par with questionable turf practices.”