Historic HB: Victorian modesty kept women out of sea

The Te Awa Swimming and Life Saving Club practising on Marine Parade beach in front of the Masonic Hotel around 100 years ago.

Blessed with a more agreeable climate than the "old country" and with most settlements near the sea, bathing was a popular pastime that Victorian Europeans enjoyed here – well initially mostly the males, and of course with much Victorian modesty.

A "bathing machine" was a wheeled, walled and roofed device (canvas or solid wood) that allowed people to change out of their clothes into a swimming costume which then was rolled into the sea. It was of course indecent in Victorian times to see a lady in her bathing costume.

One such bathing machine made its appearance in Napier in 1860, when Napier was only five or so years in existence. The Royal Hotel on the corner of Carlyle and Chaucer Rd advertised they had a bathing machine which was available for hire at one shilling (2021: $5). A female attendant and towel would be provided for that cost, and the hours of operation were from 5am to 9am.

Napier, it seemed, took the Victorian modesty in bathing thing very seriously, and the council worried at times if they were more prudish than the old country.

The Napier Borough Council's bylaws allowed all day bathing (for men) from Coote Rd to the Breakwater Port (Port of Napier), but other parts of Marine Parade were restricted.

Women in 1894 Napier had apparently "not ventured into the briny, preferring to leave the whole field to the opposite sex". It was suggested that whoever brought in a few bathing machines for the ladies would "make a small fortune". (Napier's Marine Parade was not really suitable for them due to its shingle beach.)

The popularity of swimming was such that the Napier Swimming Club was formed in 1894. The only swimming pool then was the White Road baths in Hastings St (about where the Fountain Court Motel is now) which opened in 1877.

The first competition swimming races (males only) were held on the Marine Parade beach in March 1894 – in front of the Masonic Hotel.

A visit from accomplished swimmer 24-year-old Ernie Cavill of Australia during his New Zealand exhibition tour of 1894 sparked even more interest in swimming.

Ernie made an appearance at the White Road baths on April 25 where he displayed his "fancy and speed swimming".

It was his performance of what he called the "Monte Cristo act" that involved Ernie being sewn into a canvas bag, weighted with stones, and thrown into the deep end of the baths, to which he would cut his way out with a knife, that got the crowd's attention.

Just as worrying mutterings started among the crowd, Ernie popped to the surface. (His younger brother Arthur nearly died doing this act in Sydney in 1913 when pushed 20 metres off a bridge he hit his head on a buoy and could not cut his way out of the sack. His assistants rescued him and performed resuscitation on him for 35 minutes.)

Some controversy erupted when a local swimmer – Harry Gorman – who was a good all-round athlete, was given a five second start in a race against Ernie – who just pipped Harry at the end.

Michael Fowler

Harry's status as an amateur was called into question for racing against a professional swimmer. He was warned before the race in writing that he would risk his amateur status, but nothing came of this.

When Napier Swimming Club member, and champion swimmer, 28-year-old Bright Cooper was killed by a shark attack (and his injuries, as was then the fashion, were described in hideous detail) in December 1896 on Marine Parade beach, the club was not so keen to swim there anymore, preferring the swimming baths.

A first for Hawke's Bay occurred in 1897, when the Napier Swimming Club put on a ladies' race in February 1897 at the White Road baths. Five competitors took part and the winner, Miss E Palmer, swam with the "modern fast-swimming side stroke", which gave her an advantage over the others who did breaststroke. They were all said to swim well considering they "were scarcely more than learners".

During the time when Napier briefly had two town boards, a meeting held in January 1913 in the Napier South Town Board offices to form the Te Awa Swimming and Life Saving Club. (The world's first one was formed in Bondi in 1906, and in New Zealand in 1910 at Lyall Bay and New Brighton.)

People were beginning to venture back into the ocean swimming after the 1896 shark attack, and the social taboos of swimming slowly lifting.

Their place of choice to hold their first swimming carnival was the Tutaekuri River in March. By the end of the year they had 111 members, including 20 females.

Some of the Te Awa Club's members had through the 1910 visit of William Henry, founder of the Royal Life Saving Society of London, learned lifesaving techniques. So from within the club it was these men who took part in the lifesaving.

The McLean shield given by R D McLean, was competed for between the Napier Swimming Club and the Te Awa Club. The competition was held on Marine Parade beach in front of the Masonic Hotel. (This shield was lost in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake and replaced with the London Shield.)

Five lifesaving reels were located at various intervals along the Marine Parade beach, and as pictured the Te Awa Club would practise with one of them in the location of the Masonic Hotel.

The Te Awa Swimming and Life Saving Club still existed in the early 1950s but appears to have ceased later in that decade.

A new club called Pacific Swimming and Surf Life Saving Club was formed in 1950, and still of course exists today on Marine Parade beach.

Michael Fowler (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a contract researcher and commercial business writer of Hawke's Bay history. Follow him on facebook.com/michaelfowlerhistory