Strange as it now seems, Australian beaches were empty of body surfers until the dawn of the twentieth century. Since swimsuits had not yet been invented, five major steps were taken to ensure that the behaviour of people bathing in the ocean or swimming in rivers would not offend early colonial standards of public decency.

1, In 1833, the government of New South Wales introduced an Act that prohibited all ocean bathing in daylight hours. Sydneysiders had always been resistant to attempts by officialdom to limit their freedoms and, in the heat of summer, they were not to be kept from the cool ocean waves. The authorities struck back with a new Act, passed in 1838, banning daylight swimming within sight of any public place.

2. Beach Inspectors enforced the new laws, which carried a fine of one pound Sterling - more than the weekly wage of an ordinary working man. Glorying in the title of Inspector of Public Nuisances, few of these unpopular functionaries were noted for a sense of humour.

3. By 1841, public baths had been set up in Melbourne's Yarra River. The first swimming championship was held in Sydney's Domain Baths in 1846. Dress codes that were ridiculously modest by modern standards remained in force. Bathing dresses were usually made from a heavy woolen serge and could contain up to ten metres of fabric.

4. Among the first body surfers to publicly defy the laws against daylight bathing were two Manly Beach locals, Freddie Williams and Tommy Tanna. The first official challenge came in 1902, when the owner of the local newspaper became fed up with a law that had led to many deaths because people swam at night. William Gocher made three well-advertised daytime swims in a bid to force police to arrest him, but none of the magistrates would convict him. By 1903, the law had to be changed but the bans on Sunday bathing, on men and women swimming together, and the strict dress regulations remained in force until the 1930s.

5. The Royal Humane Society of Australasia, formed in 1882, and the Royal Life Saving Society, formed in 1894, were the precursors of Australia's famed surf lifesavers. Early rescue methods were based on those used in England and not until 1902 was the first club of regular lifesavers formed, by Major John Bond of the Medical Staff Corps, Victoria Barracks, at Sydney's Bronte Beach. The team was formally constituted in March 1907. At Bondi Beach, a club had been constituted in February 1906 and one of its members introduced the reel, which revolutionized life saving methods. Its first use was to rescue a boy who would become world-famous as the aviator Charles Kingsford Smith.

(c) Dorothy Gauvin

Discover a treasure trove of little-known characters and events from Australia's colourful past in an action-packed novel by Dorothy Gauvin at http://www.gauvin.com.au/aussienovel.html

Dorothy Gauvin is the author of Conlan's Luck, An Epic Story of the Shearers' War. This little-known uprising of the 1890s has been called a 'Secret Civil War.' Scholarly texts have been published about this seminal and colourful period of Australian history, but Conlan's Luck seems to be the only novel yet published on the subject. See more about the novel at http://www.gauvin.com.au/aussienovel.html