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The term “wherry” or “wherrie” was a regular term used for a boat as the Coverdale Bible of 1535 speaks of “All whirry men, and all maryners vpo the see…” in the Book of Ezekiel. Wherries along the tideway in London were water taxis operated by watermen and in Elizabethan times their use was widespread. A wherry could be rowed by two men with long oars or by a single waterman using short oars or ‘sculls’. An Act of Parliament in 1555 specified that a wherry should be “22½ feet long and 4½ wide ‘amidships’”.[8] and could carry up to five passengers.[9] According to one account concerning Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, “Patrons were transported across the River Thames to Southwark by ‘wherry boats’. At one time over two thousand wherries made their way to and from the theatre district.”[
During the eighteenth century rowing competitions for watermen became established on the Thames, and the prize was often a new wherry. The Sporting Magazine describes an event on 6 August 1795 as “the contest for the annual wherry given by the Proprietors of Vauxhall by six pairs of oars in three heats”. In 1822 Bell’s Life reported on a contest on 30 June between eight watermen belonging to the Temple Stairs for “a prize wherry given by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court” and on 31 July “the anniversary of the Grand Aquatic Regatta of the inhabitants of Queenhithe“, when “a handsome Wherry” and other prizes were contended for by “six of the free watermen belonging to those stairs”.[10] In 1820 there were still 3,000 wherries plying on the Thames, while in the same year there were only 1,200 hackney coaches. As late as 1829, the usual means of crossing the river from Westminster to Vauxhall was by boat, but the wherryman’s trade came to an end when new bridges were built and cheap steamboats were put on the river.[11]