AS A coach John Bull made a significant contribution to British women’s rowing in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Born in 1912, he started work aged 14 as a Post Office messenger. He began rowing at the Cygnet Rowing Club in the early 1930s, winning pots at Thames Cup level and only pausing for the war years when he served as a Royal Navy telegraphist on minesweepers in the Atlantic and along the D-Day beaches.

The Civil Service Ladies Rowing Club (now Barnes Bridge Ladies) claimed him in 1968. The squad was small, and there was competition from the Rolling Stones, Joan Baez and Vietnam marches. But Bull’s monkish diligence and gentlemanly charm produced excellent results. If he said “Stand up in the boat,” they stood up; if he said “Balance the blade with your right leg,” they did it.

In 1970 his women won the keenly contested Head of River VIIIs, and four of them, rowing for England, won the first Home Countries event at Molesey, while the other four won the Elites at Bedford.

Bull now set his sights on the World Championships and on Olympic events that would not be open to women until later that decade. He prepared the VIII to race internationally at the Bosbaan in Amsterdam, but the British women could not compete with the power of the East Germans, and had more success in single and double sculls. Within a few years, however, Civil Service women in the national squad were training and racing to international success in small boats.

By making it a competitive force, Bull helped to put the women’s club on the national scene. In 1972 they recorded more than 30 wins, including the Victor Ludorum trophy at the National Championships and the Barclays Bank Trophy at Nottingham International.

Bull retired from coaching the women in 1973 and returned to his own club, Cygnet, as senior vice-president (and chief consultant for mixed VIIIs crews). Until quite recently he kept a vegetable garden behind the boat shed, with prize-winning runner beans growing up old rowing blades.

John Bull, rowing coach, was born on March 20, 1912. He died on August 18, 2006, aged 94.