Henley Royal Regatta the Women's Fours, the Women's Pairs and the Women's Double Sculls. These were raced for the first time at the 2017 Regatta. Henley hosted the rowing events of the London Olympic Games in mid-July 1908, two weeks after the Royal Regatta. The course was extended downstream and upstream, making it and . Events for single sculls, coxless pairs, coxless fours and eights were offered but only the eights produced an international final. A meeting arranged by Leander Club in January 1919 concluded that it was too soon to revive the regatta but asked the Stewards to arrange a “Peace Regatta”
Henley Royal Regatta was clear that open women’s events would be dominated by foreign competitors, while events closed to foreign competitors would not serve the desired purpose. Another difficulty was the length of the course. The standard distance for international women's races was at that time 1000 m. It was clear that races over the full Henley course (2112 m) would not be appealing to women's crews preparing for international championships. Peter Coni, who was elected as Chairman of the regatta’s Committee of Management in 1978, was supportive of the idea of introducing women's events. However, he had had little time to take