Both young women were making a name for themselves, outdoors in the River Thames where everyone could see them, easily swimming five – even twenty – miles, and in conventional terms not wearing much in the way of clothing. No wonder the press were a little unnerved. But if male journalists didn’t like to see young ladies indulging in public exhibition, others did, and how exciting it must have been to watch teenagers Agnes Beckwith and Emily Parker in the middle of the ‘greatest metropolis in the world’ swimming their hearts out.
The same month that Parker reached Blackwall Pier, she also swam from London Bridge to North Woolwich Gardens, using her ‘favourite chest stroke’ and covering around ten and a quarter miles. The Morning Post reported the tide was ‘moderately good, but the wind, which was rather high, was dead against the swimmer, and the water very rough and lumpy’. At Greenwich ‘a man named Buike, who had accompanied little Emily from London Bridge, gave up’. From Blackwall Pier to Woolwich ‘the water was extremely rough, and the constant breaking of the waves in the face of the swimmer distressed her considerably’. At this point her brother Harry entered the water ‘with a view to encourage his sister, who was working hard’.
When Parker arrived at her destination she got on to a boat and her brother then carried her up to the gardens. ‘After she had partaken of some refreshment’ – having not had ‘any stimulant whatever while she was in the water’ – she was presented with a gold medal valued at ten guineas.
Other noted Victorian swimmers also set off from London Bridge, among them Frederick Cavill, who attempted to swim to Gravesend in July 1876. The ex-Champion of the South Coast would ‘start a little swim’ said the press, intended as a ‘gentle preparation’ for a projected Channel crossing. Cavill, born in 1839 in London, had joined the navy, and seen action, before taking up professional swimming. In 1862 he’d won the English 500 yards swimming championship. This time he swam ‘over twenty miles from London Bridge to Greenhithe, the longest distance to that time on the Thames’, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. But Cavill failed to reach Gravesend because ‘the ebb tide had run out’ and he could ‘make no head way’. There was no mention in any press reports of what he was wearing. The following month he swam from Southampton to Southsea Pier and from Dover to Ramsgate, before trying the Channel, but he was forced to give up three miles from the end.
Described as having a ‘robust constitution, broad chest, and great muscular power’, he tried the Channel again – and failed again – in 1877. He then migrated to Australia, settling in Sydney and establishing himself as a swimming professor, publishing a pamphlet, How to Learn to Swim, and successfully completing a number of long-distance swims. He must have also returned to England for in 1897 it was Cavill who won the Kew to Putney race, beating twenty-one other competitors. The British press described him as Australian, ‘a wonderfully good man’ who had now won ‘his first success in England’. Cavill died in 1927. One of his sons, Arthur, was a professional champion of Australia and is credited with originating the crawl stroke, while another, Sydney, is said by some to be the originator of the butterfly stroke.
Meanwhile, other famous sporting men decided that, rather than swimming from London Bridge, they would dive from it. In 1871, J.B. Johnson made ‘a sensational leap’ in order to rescue a drowning man, a ‘Mr Peters of the West-end’. But rumours abounded: was ‘Mr Peters’ none other than Johnson’s brother, Peter, himself a professional swimmer? It appeared that ‘his fall from a steamer’ and his successful rescue were pre-arranged and the press concluded the whole thing was ‘a got-up affair’. It might have been daring, but it hadn’t been heroic. The brothers declined to comment. In 1872 Johnson became the first person ever recorded to try and swim the Channel, and although he failed it was his attempt that inspired Webb. He went on to compete in many Thames races, such as the Putney to Hammersmith championships, and was immortalised in a ballad:
Oh ! J.B. Johnson, I wish that I were him,
Oh ! J.B. Johnson, he is the man to swim,
And hasn’t he the pluck? he floats just like a duck,
I wish that I could swim, like J.B. Johnson.
Johnson’s title the ‘Hero of London Bridge’ was short-lived, but others were quick to copy him. One Monday afternoon a man named Rawlins, whiling away his time in a local tavern, bet his friends a pot of beer that he would jump from London Bridge. He got on to the parapet and ‘dived head foremost into the Thames’. The bridge was crowded with pedestrians and ‘the excitement was intense’ as Rawlins came to the surface and began swimming towards Old Swan steamboat pier. Several ‘watermen, who thought it was an attempt at suicide’, rowed after him. A captain from the London Steam-Boat Company threw out a rope and Rawlins, who was ‘a first class swimmer’, got on to the steamer. The police went after him, but he’d already made his escape.
A few years later, on 27 September 1889, it was seventeen-year-old Marie Finney’s turn to dive when The Graphic reported, ‘A LADY’S LEAP FROM LONDON BRIDGE’. ‘Of course the act was an illegal one, and on that account the arrangements for the performance were kept secret. Beyond the customary gangs of loafers, no one was about at the time. It was decided that Miss Finney should leap from the first arch on the Middlesex side at 2.45 . . . A number of steamboats and tugs were passing at the time, and it was not until three o’clock that the signal was given to the fair diver. The course, so to speak, being clear, one male friend took her broad-brimmed hat, and another her long ulster, the lady immediately leaping on to the coping-stone. She was attired in a tight-fitting, dark blue navy jersey.
When Marie Finney dived from London Bridge in 1889, diving was still a new sport in England. By 1903 the Highgate Men’s Pond on Hampstead Heath (above) was hosting high diving displays and Graceful Diving Championships.
‘After pausing for a few seconds to take her bearings, she dropped upon the projecting stone, a couple of feet below the parapet, and then dived down, striking the water beautifully. The whole business occupied only a few moments, and before the loafers could realise what had happened she was striking out for the boat. On reaching it she waved her hand to her friends, and was rowed to the shore none the worse for her immersion.’
Other reports added that just before she jumped a nearby policeman, busy regulating the traffic, was oblivious to what was going to happen, and that it was her brother who gave the all-clear signal from below, after which she was ‘hoisted’ on to the bridge. Presumably the press had been tipped off about the stunt beforehand. And what a stunt it was: diving was still a relatively new art form in England, and the country’s first professional purpose-built diving stage wouldn’t appear for another four years, at the Highgate Men’s Pond on Hampstead Heath which hosted the national Graceful Diving Championships. In the early nineteenth century diving had been more of a plunge and the aim was to dive in and go as far as possible underwater. Then in the 1890s Swedish and German gymnasts developed it into an art form until a dive meant the actual process of entering the water. The Swedes also brought in the swan or swallow dive, far more graceful than the ‘English header’, and fancy diving, adding more complex somersaults and twists. It would be another five years before Annie Luker dived from London Bridge and went on to perform at the Royal Aquarium, where her husband was too nervous to watch her; the Amateur Diving Association wasn’t formed until 1901; diving for men didn’t become an Olympic sport until 1904, and for women not until 1912. So Finney’s ‘leap’ from London Bridge would have been the first time many people had seen a dive at all.
Born in Southport in 1872, Finney’s brother James was a champion swimming professor and together they had been giving aquatic entertainments ‘in a glass bath’. She was, said the Penny Illustrated Paper, a ‘captivating young lady, as lissome as a mermaid under water’ and, unlike Johnson’s dive, there was ‘no pretence of a rescue on the part of Miss Finney, who proved herself an exceedingly courageous damsel . . . this daring little Lancashire witch walked from a neig
hbouring hostelry on to London bridge . . . to all appearances out for a stroll’.
The following spring Finney wasn’t so lucky. This time she was in Dublin and attempting to dive from O’Connell’s Bridge into the River Liffey. ‘Thousands of people assembled, but just as Miss Finney was clambering along the battlements, previous to taking the dive, she was seized by a policeman and arrested.’ She was charged with obstructing the thoroughfare and fined £1.
But she went on to complete other dives, often off seaside piers, and together with her brother toured the United States giving exhibitions at theatres.
A few weeks after Finney’s 1889 leap from London Bridge, another famous diver followed suit. Tom Burns’ plan was to walk from his home city of Liverpool to London and back, diving from a bridge at each end of the journey.
‘The Champion Diver of the World’, as he would be known, first dived from Runcorn Bridge, and then swam eighteen miles along the Mersey to Liverpool, before setting off to London. When he reached London Bridge ‘the police had to be evaded, while no little difficulty was found in procuring a recess from which to jump off. At length however, Burns saw an opportunity. The boatman below gave the signal, and in a few seconds Burns doffed his clothes, mounted the bridge and dropped on to the parapet. After a careful survey, with a loud shout he plunged.’ Burns then swam the overarm stroke, and pulled himself into the boat, while ‘hundreds of people watched him from the bridge and remained in earnest conversation all the time [he] was dressing in mid stream’. Then he started off on his journey home.
Born around 1867, Burns was a popular entertainer who amazed audiences at the Royal Aquarium where he dived 100 feet into a shallow tank of water. He’d learned to swim when he was nine, became a club captain and a swimming teacher, and won hundreds of awards for diving, swimming, running, walking and boxing, as well as numerous medals and awards for saving forty-two people from drowning. Seven years after his London Bridge dive, he is said to have dived from at least seven other London bridges. He also dived off bridges in Glasgow and Dublin, and was known for disguising himself as a ‘farmer, miner, newsboy, old woman, and a female market worker’ in order to evade police. However, he didn’t always succeed and was sometimes arrested after a dive. He died at the age of thirty, after a dive went wrong in North Wales where 3,000 people had gathered to watch. The Liverpool Echo applauded his ‘dare-devil exploits’ and described him as an erratic genius: ‘He had all the rough material in his composition out of which heroes are made.’
A six-year-old retriever named Now Then outpaces R. Smith from Sheerness in a ten-mile swim from London Bridge in August 1880. The dog lasted two hours, the man forty-seven minutes.
London Bridge wasn’t just the site for daring swims and dives, but, like Westminster Bridge, it was a place for novelty feats as well. In August 1880, for a wager of £50, R. Smith from Sheerness, a ‘known aquatic performer’, and a six-year-old black retriever named Now Then, said to have rescued seven people, set off to swim ten miles from London Bridge to North Woolwich Gardens. A newspaper illustration from the time shows the river full of boats, the dog calmly leading the way being spurred on by a slightly threatening looking bowler-hatted man in a rowing boat waving a stick. Smith started the race in front but was quickly overtaken and by the time he got to the Tower he was 50 yards behind. He gave up, ‘much distressed’, just off Limehouse after forty-seven minutes, while the dog continued to Deptford Creek ‘none the worse for wear’ after nearly two hours in the water. Of all the ground-breaking swims and dives from London Bridge, and particularly the women’s, few are celebrated today. Instead it is this novelty race between a man and a dog that is more likely to be referenced in books about the Thames.
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Tower Bridge and Tower Beach
‘Children may now use the beach lawfully as well as safely, for the King has given permission for them to have this tidal playground for ever’
The Times, 24 July 1934
I leave London Bridge and head along the Thames Path towards Tower Bridge but the route is temporarily closed and so I stop, not wanting to take a detour right into the Tower of London. I walk down some steps to the shore where waves lap around ancient timber structures; two heavily tattooed men are roaming the beach while a woman concentrates on writing her name on the sand with a sharp stone. A Dutchman asks if I can take his photograph. It’s not the beach or the bridge he’s interested in: he wants to pose with the Shard behind him, the silver needle looming over London Bridge Hospital on the other side of the river. But it is Tower Bridge that attracts most people. Opened in 1894 it’s still one of the most familiar bridges in the world, regularly featured in films and tourist literature. It’s the only Thames bridge which can be raised, the middle section being lifted four or five times a week to allow large vessels to pass underneath. ‘I want to go on the beach!’ a man at the top of the steps shouts to his children and I think, why? There’s nothing much to see down here.
But back in the 1930s, a little way downstream in front of the Tower of London, this was the city’s very own ‘sea side’. Here children of the East End traditionally played on the rocky foreshore at low tide, although this could be a fatal pastime. Officially they were also trespassing on land that belonged to the Crown. When Henry III received ‘a white bear’ from King Haakon of Norway in 1252 it was reportedly given ‘a long leash’ so that it could swim in the Thames and catch fish, but in the fourteenth century Edward III issued a proclamation against bathing in the Thames near the Tower ‘on pain of death’, presumably because it bordered royal land.
When the Tower of London Children’s Beach opened in 1934 King George V promised the children of the East End would ‘have this tidal playground for ever.’ Here families enjoy ‘London’s Riviera’ in 1952.
The 1930s children’s beach was the brainchild of the Revd Phillip Thomas Byard Clayton, explains Rose Baillie, chair of the City of London Archaeological Society (COLAS), who has written a booklet on its history. Popularly known as ‘Tubby’, the Revd Clayton was a man of ‘radiant spirituality, energy, good heartedness and charm’. In the summer of 1931 he came up with a plan for the foreshore which ‘in summer is alive with families’ and when ‘venturesome children have from time to time to be rescued from the incoming tide by boats from Tower Pier, but warning will not keep them from their natural wishes’. ‘Tubby’ believed the area could be ‘a genuine delight to the poor families who frequented Tower Hill’. He received the backing of Lord Wakefield of Hythe, a former Lord Mayor of London who made his fortune founding the Wakefield Oil Company, later Castrol, and who became president of the Tower Hill Improvement Fund. He bankrolled ‘all the beach expenses pre-World War Two,’ explains Rose, ‘and a heap of other good causes as well’.
On 23 July 1934 the beach was officially opened with a grand ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor, the Bishop of London and Lord Wakefield. ‘Now,’ declared the Fund in a report entitled ‘The Great Goal’, ‘on this very spot where, in the Middle Ages the penalty for trespass was also death for man, woman or child’ there would be ‘a safe playground for little ones’. King George V had been petitioned for permission to create the beach and, in a letter read out by Lord Wakefield, he assured local children that they would ‘have this tidal playground as their own for ever’. Wakefield cut a white tape to open the beach and then, reported The Times, ‘the ladder was lowered, to the music of cheerful siren-blasts from ships in the Thames’. Children rushed down to the beach, where free ‘buns and chocolate and unlimited lemonade’ were set out on long tables laden with casks and cardboard boxes of food.
The beach was used for paddling, swimming, building sandcastles and sunbathing. In the coming years there were toffee-apple sellers, entertainers and gala days, and thousands used the spot for their summer holidays. An estimated 70,000 children visited in the first year; in 1935 there were 100,000 children and adults. Most came from Stepney, others from Barking, Bermondsey, Borough, Shoreditch, Tottenham, Bethnal Green
and Walthamstow. Teachers brought their classes to the beach as well, just as stateschool pupils would be taken to Thames baths at Oxford and Reading and public school boys would be taught to swim in the river at Eton and Westminster.
The ladder was lowered for up to six hours a day, between April and September, depending on the tides. There was a beach guard and during very busy days the St John Ambulance was on hand to help.
Safety, says Rose, was always a major concern. Leaflets were widely distributed, and a duty waterman was posted 30 yards downstream with a lifebuoy and pole grapnel to rescue those in trouble. His services were called upon three times in the first year. He was then joined by a commercial boatman who offered boat trips and rowing lessons. Yet while eighty-two accidents were reported in two seasons, most were minor cuts and scrapes.
The quality of the water itself, however, didn’t seem to cause concern: ‘we today are very conscious of the health risks of swimming in possibly polluted water,’ writes Rose. ‘Strangely enough, I have yet to find any indication that this was a concern for those involved with the Beach in the 1930s.’ Instead, within a few years it was increasingly being used by hospital convalescents.
In 1936 deckchairs were introduced, as well as 200 cubic yards of ‘clean Essex sand’, which meant the beach was a little higher and so could be used for longer periods. The next year another 300 cubic yards of sand was added and on sunny bank holidays the beach was thronged with deckchairs as people sampled the delights of London’s ‘Riviera’. There were still accidents, however. Children were rescued when they got into difficulties swimming in water that was 12 feet deep, and at least two drowned near Irongate Stairs when they were swept away by the current.
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