St Catherine's College Rowing Society
President: Colin Smith
Vice Presidents: Neil Chugani, Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE, Zoe de Toledo, Andrew Triggs Hodge OBE.

The Benjamin F. Sylvester Jr Award

The winner of the 2026 award is

Charlie Knight

Charlie Knight

[BFS Award]

Charlie Knight is the winner of the 2026 Ben Sylvester Award for the person 'who has who has most significantly contributed to enhancing the rowing life of St Catherine's'.

From some of those who nominated him ...

His commitment to the club since he joined, especially this year as both novice captain and secretary has been unmatched. The novice recruitment this year was huge (more than we have seen in many years), and largely maintained throughout the year despite the lack of water time which can be attributed partly to Charlie.
Also
From coxing (and for a large part coaching) the Men's novice boat for the Tamesis regatta, to accompanying the beginners to BUCS, to organising/coaching/coxing M2 and M3 in the eights campaign, Charlie has been unstoppable.

I have found that he consistently ensures a welcome, positive and excited atmosphere at the boathouse and at Catz, which has certainly inspired my commitment over the year.}

Proxime Accessit: Julia Gartold

Also nominated were: Sam Harvey and Teresa Wood

Background of the Award

At the North American alumni reunion on March 16, 2002, Sir Peter Williams announced the establishment of an award to commemorate the splendid and varied contributions made by Benjamin F. Sylvester, Jr to the College. The award has been funded by the St Catherine's College (Oxford) Foundation.
A Benjamin F. Sylvester, Jr medal will be given annually to the member of the Boat Club who has most significantly contributed to enhancing the rowing life of St Catherine's College, Oxford.
Names of winners will also be displayed on a plaque to be mounted in the boathouse club room. Nominations will be solicited from members of the Boat Club and will be judged by a committee of former College oarsmen. The medal, designed by Dana Edmondson, depicts a Catherine wheel comprised of oars on a background of water. At the ends of the oars are flames symbolizing warmth and illumination. At the center of the medal is the crest of St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Design for the Benjamin F. Sylvester, Jr medal
[BFS Medal]

Previous Winners

2025 Juan-Pablo Cajiga-Pena
2024 [no award]
2023 Eugenio Vecchi
2022 Niamh Louwman
2021 Ilayda Karadag
2020 Chloe Bregazzi
2019 Jakob Kaeppler (Rachel Craig-McFeeley proxime accessit)
2018 Holly Smith
2017 Georgios Ntentas
2016 James Wills (Alice Pickthall proxime accessit)
2015 Miriam Mahmoud
2014 Ben Baron
2013 Joshua Morgan
2012 Joanna Harrall
2011 Theresa Kevorkian (Phillip McCullough proxime accessit)
2010 Jack Plummer
2009 Anu Dudhia (Special Award)
2009 Malcolm Spencer
2008 James Dunbar (Dane van den Akker proxime accessit)
2007 Michael Tran (Katharine Pierce proxime accessit)
2006 Darren Chadwick (Michael Tran proxime accessit)
2005 Steve Wicks
2004 Dan Robson
2003 Mike Bull
2002 Emily Woodeson
Back to RS page