Seventy years on, Oxford pub pays tribute to Bob Hawke’s legendary skol
By Rob Harris
London: Bob Hawke’s legendary claim to fame– skolling a yard of ale in world-record time – has been commemorated by an Oxford pub and an iconic glass has been returned to the front bar 70 years after the famed event.
A group of Australian students at the University of Oxford banded together to install a brass plaque commemorating Hawke’s boozy exploits and replace a stolen yard glass that had for years adorned the walls of Turf Tavern. The glass went missing from the pub shortly after Hawke’s death in May 2019, aged 89.
Australian students at Oxford gathered at the Turf Tavern this week to mark 70 years since Bob Hawke’s world-record skol.
Hawke – the longest-serving Australian Labor prime minister, who led the nation from 1983 to 1991 – was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford from 1953 to 1956. In 1954, he drank a yard of ale – 2½ pints, or 1.4 litres – in 11 seconds, which was recognised by The Guinness Book of Records.
“The Turf Tavern ever since has been hallowed ground for a lot of Australians who come here,” said Nick Fabbri, who is a Bob Hawke-John Monash scholar undertaking a master’s degree in public policy. “There is a lot of mythology around this place about Hawkie’s effort here. And I thought it was really important to make sure there was some sort of proper public commemoration and history of Australians at Oxford.”
The foundations of the pub, a longstanding favourite among Oxford students, date back to 1381. It has been frequented by many famous guests, including actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, British prime ministers Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, author C. S Lewis and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The pub also claims it was the place where Bill Clinton said he “did not inhale” after smoking a joint in the late ’60s.
Bob Hawke once held a record for beer drinking while he was a student at Oxford.Credit: Fairfax Media
Hawke’s 11-second record remains the stuff of legend around Oxford, but there has long been conjecture as to where the record actually took place. His Guinness Book of Records entry cites only Oxford, and the Turf Tavern pub has long claimed that’s where it happened.
Following Hawke’s death, Australian Labor luminaries Gareth Evans and Kevin Rudd lent their support for an official blue plaque to be placed outside the pub, which was rejected by Oxford City Council.
Hawke’s memoirs said the world record was set not at the Turf but at the nearby dining hall of University College, where he was a student, after he was punished for failing to wear his academic gown to dinner.
“Some bastard had ‘borrowed’ mine,” Hawke wrote, and as punishment he was “sconced”, forced to beat the “sconcemaster” in drinking from a pewter pot – equivalent to a yard glass – or face a fine.
“I was too broke for the fine and necessity became the mother of ingestion. I downed the contents of the pot in 11 seconds, left the sconcemaster floundering, and entered the Guinness Book of Records with the fastest time ever recorded,” he wrote.
The Turf Tavern’s manager, Bev Vanstone, said while the pub’s history dates back centuries to its use as a malt house and an epicentre of illegal gambling, one of its proudest boasts was the link to Hawke’s famous feat. She said the plaque, which is on behalf of “past, present and future Australian Oxonians”, and yard glass would be displayed at the front bar.
“It’s lovely to now have something we can show people who come into the Turf, not just Australians but everyone who visits,” she said.
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