Swiming
- Thread starter Tom Bates
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emma skinner
Guest
could i ask, what would they have worn to go swimming?
Dave Gittins
Member
To be specific, on Titanic the day in the pool opened with a free session for men from 6-00 a.m. to 9-00 a.m. Women had the pool from 10-00 a.m. to 1-00 p.m. and men from 2-00 p.m. to 6-00 p.m. Each of these sessions cost 4 shillings. The White Star handout makes no mention of children.
Both sexes had been bathing in the sea for many years. I'd say at least from the late 18th century, but I'll take correction on that. Note that I said bathing. In early days there was not a lot of swimming. People felt that splashing about in seawater was go for their health. The costumes of the 19th century were not much good for swimming in anyway.
Costumes and conduct varied quite a bit from place to place. Many places required neck to knee cover and sometimes beaches were segregated by sex. While researching Titanic, I came on an article from 1912 that argued the question of mixed bathing on Sydney beaches. Some thought it was the path to sin but others said it was OK in family groups. Women contested a 100 metre freestyle race at the Olympics of 1912. This was only a few years after Annette Kellerman was arrested in Boston for wearing a man's (very unrevealing) swimming costume.
In some circumstances there was quite a bit of tolerance. It was common for soldiers to swim nude when on their own.
There should be some more on the Internet. I suspect somebody has written a book about the history of swimming and its customs.
Both sexes had been bathing in the sea for many years. I'd say at least from the late 18th century, but I'll take correction on that. Note that I said bathing. In early days there was not a lot of swimming. People felt that splashing about in seawater was go for their health. The costumes of the 19th century were not much good for swimming in anyway.
Costumes and conduct varied quite a bit from place to place. Many places required neck to knee cover and sometimes beaches were segregated by sex. While researching Titanic, I came on an article from 1912 that argued the question of mixed bathing on Sydney beaches. Some thought it was the path to sin but others said it was OK in family groups. Women contested a 100 metre freestyle race at the Olympics of 1912. This was only a few years after Annette Kellerman was arrested in Boston for wearing a man's (very unrevealing) swimming costume.
In some circumstances there was quite a bit of tolerance. It was common for soldiers to swim nude when on their own.
There should be some more on the Internet. I suspect somebody has written a book about the history of swimming and its customs.
Dave Gittins
Member
There's a photo of Annette Kellerman trying to look glamorous in about 1912 here.
The accompanying article gives some idea of the attitudes that were still around in the 1940s.
At Hollywood Poolside we see Kellerman in later years in a more "daring" costume. Her arrest in Boston in 1907 is mentioned.
NARA | Prologue | Prologue: Selected Articles
Prologue, Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration
web.archive.org
The accompanying article gives some idea of the attitudes that were still around in the 1940s.
At Hollywood Poolside we see Kellerman in later years in a more "daring" costume. Her arrest in Boston in 1907 is mentioned.
Dave Gittins
Member
Part way down this page we see Australia's gold and silver medallists from the 1912 games.
Here's another photo and an article that tells of the difficulties women had in getting into sport in those days.
Wylie's Baths Coogee Est 1907
web.archive.org
Here's another photo and an article that tells of the difficulties women had in getting into sport in those days.
Celebrating our sporting heritage
web.archive.org
Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Dave,
The freedom to swim without the encumberance of those aweful swimming costumes was one of the few liberating effects of the two world wars. Our boys in the ANZACs at Gallipoli and elsewhere often swam and bathed nude when they had the opportunity. the same goes for our Aussie cousins. There are photos in our national collections of this.
The German soldiers experiences of this gave rise to the founding of what would become the modern nudist movement.
I suspect that the swim times, although gender segregated, would have required appropriate costumery althouh I know that here in NZ men and boys were free to swimm naked together or alone in the absence of females. This existed commonly up to the fifties. We have lost this well and truely now due to the moral panics of the 80's and 90's.
martin
The freedom to swim without the encumberance of those aweful swimming costumes was one of the few liberating effects of the two world wars. Our boys in the ANZACs at Gallipoli and elsewhere often swam and bathed nude when they had the opportunity. the same goes for our Aussie cousins. There are photos in our national collections of this.
The German soldiers experiences of this gave rise to the founding of what would become the modern nudist movement.
I suspect that the swim times, although gender segregated, would have required appropriate costumery althouh I know that here in NZ men and boys were free to swimm naked together or alone in the absence of females. This existed commonly up to the fifties. We have lost this well and truely now due to the moral panics of the 80's and 90's.
martin
Dave Gittins
Member
G'day, Martin! Another Kiwi in our merry band.
You must be getting conservative over there. Here in Adelaide we've had a nude beach for years. I think there are one or two others around the state. There have been one or two unseemly incidents but overall it's been successful. Personally, I never go there, as I don't want people of both sexes running off in horror.
You must be getting conservative over there. Here in Adelaide we've had a nude beach for years. I think there are one or two others around the state. There have been one or two unseemly incidents but overall it's been successful. Personally, I never go there, as I don't want people of both sexes running off in horror.
Bob Godfrey
Member
Dave, knowing you to be a connoisseur of the likes of George Formby, I offer a link:
Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Hi Dave,
Yes another flightless bird on the list!
to answer you conservative tag I would say this.
NZ has no nude beaches since in law as long as no one complains one may swimm anywhere as God designed us. Of course if one chooses oriental bay in Wellington or Mission bay in Auckland the odds are guarunteed a puritan somewhere will complain and hey nonny nonny! Baldrick fetch the police!!
Breaker bay in wellington is popular with the all over tan fraternity but the water is cold and deep.
The likelyhood that boys would feel free to ditch their clothes to skinnydip has deminished since the mid seventies as antisex morality and sex abuse paranoia has washed through our cultural psyche.
so the truth is in certain areas NZ is up with things but in others we ride on the coat tails of popular western morality unless it comes to nuclear warships that is.
Martin
Yes another flightless bird on the list!
to answer you conservative tag I would say this.
NZ has no nude beaches since in law as long as no one complains one may swimm anywhere as God designed us. Of course if one chooses oriental bay in Wellington or Mission bay in Auckland the odds are guarunteed a puritan somewhere will complain and hey nonny nonny! Baldrick fetch the police!!
Breaker bay in wellington is popular with the all over tan fraternity but the water is cold and deep.
The likelyhood that boys would feel free to ditch their clothes to skinnydip has deminished since the mid seventies as antisex morality and sex abuse paranoia has washed through our cultural psyche.
so the truth is in certain areas NZ is up with things but in others we ride on the coat tails of popular western morality unless it comes to nuclear warships that is.
Martin
Dave Gittins
Member
Thanks, Bob! That's about on my intellectual level.
Inger Sheil
Member
While my beach in Sydney is not legally a nude beach, its comparative inaccessiblity (no road access, you get there down cliff paths) has meant that it has something of a rep locally as a topless beach. Something to delight our late dog, who thought that women bathing sans top all wanted to play fetch with him and wouldn't mind a slobbery tennis ball or stick dropped onto their chests.
James Moody wrote merrily while he was still working the South American trade that he and a shipmate were "going to the “Scarborough” of Peru called La Punta to inspect the mixed bathing and other excitements!"
He came from a family of swimmers, including his sister Margaret. He himself swam off the ships - sharks permitting. The Conway boys of that era swam in the Liverpool baths and were taught there if they didn't already know, but Moody had evidently learned to swim before he joined the training ship. Whether or not he swam 'unencumbered' by clothing off his ships he doesn't say - most probably he did.
There are photos of the males of the Russian Imperial Family, including Nicholas II, swimming nude off the Standart.
Lightoller wrote of swimming with his young colleagues from ship to ship in Rio - his observations on sharks and mantas are highly entertaining! Harold Lowe was a strong swimmer from an early age, and made the local newspapers on one occasion during his childhood with a feat of swimming prowess. Sadly, though, one of his brothers was unable to swim...with what were rather dire results.
James Moody wrote merrily while he was still working the South American trade that he and a shipmate were "going to the “Scarborough” of Peru called La Punta to inspect the mixed bathing and other excitements!"
He came from a family of swimmers, including his sister Margaret. He himself swam off the ships - sharks permitting. The Conway boys of that era swam in the Liverpool baths and were taught there if they didn't already know, but Moody had evidently learned to swim before he joined the training ship. Whether or not he swam 'unencumbered' by clothing off his ships he doesn't say - most probably he did.
There are photos of the males of the Russian Imperial Family, including Nicholas II, swimming nude off the Standart.
Lightoller wrote of swimming with his young colleagues from ship to ship in Rio - his observations on sharks and mantas are highly entertaining! Harold Lowe was a strong swimmer from an early age, and made the local newspapers on one occasion during his childhood with a feat of swimming prowess. Sadly, though, one of his brothers was unable to swim...with what were rather dire results.
Dave Gittins
Member
"There are photos of the males of the Russian Imperial Family, including Nicholas II, swimming nude off the Standart."
Was Michael embarrassed?
Was Michael embarrassed?
Pat Winship
Member
As far as nude bathing was concerned, it appears that Lightoller was not embarrassed, although he may be inviting his readers to blush a little. He's talking about a Caribbean voyage on a Greenshields and Cowie cargo ship, the Knight Comapnion
"That evening. whilst we were leaning over the rail, smoking and yarning, someone spotted a huge conch shell a little way out from our quarter, Like a fool, one of the chaps was going to have that shell! So, clothed in a birthday suit, he jumped up on the rail and dived over the side, and down. After a struggle he got his hand between the fish and rock. The fish then attached itself to his hand, and short of putting the shell in between his feet and pulling with all his might, it was impossible to get the thing off, for your fingers are sucked right into the shell itself. This however, did not worry him. Up he came, but at an angle that took him still further from the ship. Once again on the surface, he waved his capture above his head, still stuck to his fist, swimming slowly at the same time, towards the gangway. At this moment, we spotted a sinister black shape, still some distance away, and below water. One of the chaps sang out, “Come on, you ass, buck up.” He caught an anxious inflexion in the voice, and glanced round on the surface of the water, but there was nothing to be seen from water level, so he thought it was just his imagination, and continued to swim leisurely towards the ship. Two or three of us rushed down the gangway, whilst another fellow hailed him, and this time there was no mistake about the anxiety. He looked again, and there, sure enough, was that black fin, now cutting the water like a knife and about a hundred yards away from him. He had not twenty feet to go, but, as he said later, the leaden feet one experiences in dreams, trying to run away from some overtaking horror, was mild compared with his feeling of pure unadulterated terror. Of course, try as he might, he could not get that infernal shell off his hand. He went through all the gyrations imaginable, trying to swim with it, trying to tow it, trying to do anything that would bring him to the gangway. By this time, we were down the gangway and on the platform, waiting to make a grab. There was no boat in the water, and no time to lower one, so no help was available from that source. Did he bring his feet up when we grabbed him under the armpits? Did he not! We beat John Shark by a good ten yards. After that episode, however, diving for shells became unpopular–much to the amusement of the natives."
Pat W.
"That evening. whilst we were leaning over the rail, smoking and yarning, someone spotted a huge conch shell a little way out from our quarter, Like a fool, one of the chaps was going to have that shell! So, clothed in a birthday suit, he jumped up on the rail and dived over the side, and down. After a struggle he got his hand between the fish and rock. The fish then attached itself to his hand, and short of putting the shell in between his feet and pulling with all his might, it was impossible to get the thing off, for your fingers are sucked right into the shell itself. This however, did not worry him. Up he came, but at an angle that took him still further from the ship. Once again on the surface, he waved his capture above his head, still stuck to his fist, swimming slowly at the same time, towards the gangway. At this moment, we spotted a sinister black shape, still some distance away, and below water. One of the chaps sang out, “Come on, you ass, buck up.” He caught an anxious inflexion in the voice, and glanced round on the surface of the water, but there was nothing to be seen from water level, so he thought it was just his imagination, and continued to swim leisurely towards the ship. Two or three of us rushed down the gangway, whilst another fellow hailed him, and this time there was no mistake about the anxiety. He looked again, and there, sure enough, was that black fin, now cutting the water like a knife and about a hundred yards away from him. He had not twenty feet to go, but, as he said later, the leaden feet one experiences in dreams, trying to run away from some overtaking horror, was mild compared with his feeling of pure unadulterated terror. Of course, try as he might, he could not get that infernal shell off his hand. He went through all the gyrations imaginable, trying to swim with it, trying to tow it, trying to do anything that would bring him to the gangway. By this time, we were down the gangway and on the platform, waiting to make a grab. There was no boat in the water, and no time to lower one, so no help was available from that source. Did he bring his feet up when we grabbed him under the armpits? Did he not! We beat John Shark by a good ten yards. After that episode, however, diving for shells became unpopular–much to the amusement of the natives."
Pat W.
Michael H. Standart
Member
>>Was Michael embarrassed?<<
No...but I had to wonder at their stamina. (Yes...I've seen some of the photos.) The waters where they bathed weren't exactly tropical delights. Hardier age and hardier people I guess.
No...but I had to wonder at their stamina. (Yes...I've seen some of the photos.) The waters where they bathed weren't exactly tropical delights. Hardier age and hardier people I guess.
Inger Sheil
Member
The Royal Yacht Mike Standart sails in! I was thinking of Mike when I typed that line...I'll never read about the family's beloved vessel without mentally slipping a 'Mike' in front of it.
Pat, when I read that passage I keep wondering...what sort of shark was it? "black shape" and "black fin"...hmmm...not an Oceanic Whitetip then. Nor a silver tip or grey whaler. A black tip? A bull? A silky having a bad day? A bronze whaler that got a bit curious?
Like Moody and his own escapade when, after they'd been splashing around a bit and got back up on deck, they saw 'not one, but five sharks' show up. 'Don't think I'll be doing any more swimming off this tub' he wrote thoughtfully. Please pass me the scuba gear as I drop in and say g'day to 'em.
Pat, when I read that passage I keep wondering...what sort of shark was it? "black shape" and "black fin"...hmmm...not an Oceanic Whitetip then. Nor a silver tip or grey whaler. A black tip? A bull? A silky having a bad day? A bronze whaler that got a bit curious?
Like Moody and his own escapade when, after they'd been splashing around a bit and got back up on deck, they saw 'not one, but five sharks' show up. 'Don't think I'll be doing any more swimming off this tub' he wrote thoughtfully. Please pass me the scuba gear as I drop in and say g'day to 'em.
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