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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Municipal modernity: the politics of leisure and
Johannesburg’s swimming baths, 1920s to 1930s
Louis Grundlingh*
History Department, University of Johannesburg, Kingsway, Aucklandpark, Johannesburg, South Africa
*Corresponding author. Email: louisg@uj.ac.za
Abstract
In the 1920s and 1930s, the all-powerful Johannesburg Council, comprising English-
speaking middle-class white males, realized the importance of providing leisure spaces
and sport facilities for its white residents and prioritized the building of swimming
baths in their suburbs. It was regarded as the ideal facility, supporting the growing
demand for outdoor activity. The upswing in the economy in the 1920s and especially
in the 1930s, expedited this endeavour, as it eased the financial expenditure. As a result,
Johannesburg could boast 10 new swimming baths by the end of the 1930s. The council
was adamant that the swimming baths should be on a par with international standards.
This venture fitted comfortably into the larger project of transforming the economically
vibrant Johannesburg into a modern city. In contrast, the first swimming bath for
Johannesburg’s black residents was only built in the mid-1930s, proving that racial con-
siderations determined the council’s provision of leisure facilities.
Some often view swimming baths
1
simply as functional structures, oblivious that
they are historically constructed public social spaces and overlooking what they
represent in a community, specifically in suburbs, and what they tell of a city’s his-
tory.
2
However, Van Leeuwen has prompted a scholarly interest in the swimming
bath as a distinct and quintessentially modern form of urban space.
3
Wiltse
4
and
Love
5
continued Van Leeuwen’s pioneering work. Wiltse traced the development
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the
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1
On the use of nomenclature, whilst the secondary sources use the terms ‘lido’,‘baths’or ‘pool’, for this
article, the term ‘baths’was chosen as the primary sources used this term. They have all long been
interchangeable.
2
R.E. Pick, ‘The development of baths and pools in America, 1800–1940, with emphasis on standards
and practices for indoor pools, 1910–1940’, Cornell University Ph.D. thesis, 2010, 1.
3
T. Van Leeuwen, The Springboard in the Pond: An Intimate History of the Swimming Pool (Boston, MA,
1998), 12.
4
J. Wiltse, Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Chapel Hill, 2007).
5
C. Love, A Social History of Swimming in England, 1800–1918: Splashing in the Serpentine (London,
2007).
Urban History (2021), 1–20
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of municipal swimming baths to elegant modern recreational spaces while Love’s
study investigated the competitive and recreational forms of aquatic sport.
Recently, Kozma, Teperics and Radics rightfully claimed that ‘researchers have
been paying increasing attention to study the connections between sport and
urban development’.
6
This is confirmed by similar scholars specializing in the his-
tory of swimming baths.
7
Likewise, using a cultural, municipal and class lens, this
article unlocks the establishment, design and usage of swimming baths for
Johannesburg’s white residents in a rapidly changing urban environment. It thus
introduces an ignored piece of the history of Johannesburg’s leisure facilities.
Until recently, the implicit acceptance of ‘race’as the primary category of inquiry
meantthatmoststudiesofJohannesburg interpreted the city as nothing but ‘the spatial
embodiment of unequal economic relations and coercive and segregationist policies’.
8
This scholarship is based on a long tradition focusing more on, inter alia, the geograph-
iesofpovertyandlessonthecartographiesofaffluence.
9
Not denying this reality,
10
these accounts envisioned the city not as an aesthetic project but as a space of division.
However, Parnell and Mabin were decidedly critical of what they saw as an
‘obsession with race’in existing South African urban historiography.
11
This
approach obscured and impoverished an understanding of how modernist plan-
ning, a concern for ‘improvement’as well as municipal power, had shaped South
African cities. Recently, Bickford-Smith added that a history of South African cities,
not focusing on race alone, is overdue.
12
What was needed was a history from the
perspective of powerful local politicians and bureaucrats: in this case, the role of the
protagonist in Johannesburg’s City Council, namely English-speaking, white, male,
middle class and elite, shaping the urban fabric. Their crucial relationship with
urban place has been neglected in existing historiography despite the fact that
Britishness was the ‘prime nationalism of South Africa, against which all subse-
quent ones…reacted’.
13
This article shares this concern and unpacks their role in
providing swimming baths to selected areas of the city.
6
G. Kozma, K. Teperics and Z. Radics, ‘The changing role of sports in urban development: a case study
of Debrecen (Hungary)’,International Journal of the History of Sport, 31 (2014), 1118.
7
S. Batstone, ‘Health and recreation: issues in the development of bathing and swimming, 1800–1970,
with special reference to Birmingham and Thetford Norfolk’, University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis,
2002; R.S. Kossuth, ‘Dangerous waters: Victorian decorum, swimmer safety, and the establishment of public
bathing facilities in London (Canada)’,International Journal of the History of Sport, 22 (2005), 796–815;
G. Marino, ‘The emergence of municipal baths: hygiene, war and recreation in the development of swim-
ming facilities’,Industrial Archaeology Review, 32 (2010), 35–45; F.H. McLachlan, ‘Poolspace: a deconstruc-
tion and reconfiguration of public swimming pools’, University of Otago Ph.D. thesis, 2012; I. McShane,
‘The past and future of local swimming pools’,Journal of Australian Studies, 33 (2009), 195; and Pick,
‘The development of baths and pools’,1.
8
A. Mbembe and S. Nuttall, ‘Writing the world from an African metropolis’,Public Culture, 16 (2004), 353.
9
Ibid., 356.
10
This is confirmed by the fact that the first swimming bath for black people was only built in 1936.
11
S. Parnell and A. Mabin, ‘Rethinking urban South Africa’,Journal of Southern African Studies,21
(1995), 39–62.
12
V. Bickford-Smith, ‘Urban history in the new South Africa: continuity and innovation since the end of
apartheid’,Urban History, 35 (2008), 300; and B. Freund, ‘Urban history in South Africa’,South African
Historical Journal, 52 (2005), 26.
13
V. Bickford-Smith, The Emergence of the South African Metropolis. Cities and Identities in the
Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 2016), 8 and 19.
2 Louis Grundlingh
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Cities were unmistakably the creation of their middle class, the theatre where
this elite ‘sought, extended, expressed and defended its power’.
14
For the purpose
of this article, the ‘theatre’was Johannesburg’s suburbs.
15
In explaining middle-
class suburbs, Gunn’s insights into ‘the distinction between centre and periphery’
16
is as helpful as Beavon’s explanation of the development of Johannesburg’s suburbs.
Beavon demonstrated how physical geography, economic forces and the relation-
ships between space, race and class determined Johannesburg’s layout of suburbs
on the periphery.
17
This crucial point helps to explain the council’s decision
where and when to build swimming baths, thus adding another important layer
to the fabric of suburban facilities. In short, Johannesburg’s swimming baths
became a distinctly suburban phenomenon, changing suburbanites’lives.
Studies of the histories of leisure and recreation only make fleeting reference to
municipal sports provision.
18
McShane and Katzer agree that, although sporting
space reflects key shifts in thinking about town planning, sports architecture and
physical infrastructure are likewise inadequately examined in the historiography
of urban design.
19
The corrective is, as Doyle reminds us, to emphasize the history
of municipal governance, especially as the council is the agent of change.
20
Whilst there is a dearth in the scholarship on this in South Africa, the history of
local government and the wielding of political power has attracted heightened inter-
est from urban and administrative historians.
21
For example, in England, munici-
palities were the driving force and the sole provider of swimming baths,
22
with
the city of Manchester leading the way.
23
In Victoria, Australia, the initiative also
14
S. Gunn, ‘Class, identity and the urban: the middle class in England, c. 1790–1950’,Urban History,31
(2004), 29. Also see R. Lewis, ‘Comments on urban agency: relational space and intentionality’,Urban
History, 44 (2017), 141–4.
15
The suburb had become a significant object of study as confirmed by the recent work of Stone (D.
Stone, ‘Suburbanization and cultural change: the case of club cricket in Surrey, 1870–1939’,Urban
History, 44 (2017), 48). Also see M. Clapson, ‘The new suburban history, New Urbanism and the spaces
in between’,Urban History, 43 (2016), 336–41.
16
Gunn, ‘Class, identity and the urban’, 39.
17
K. Beavon, Johannesburg: The Making and Shaping of the City (Pretoria, 2004), 88–92. McManus and
Etherigton repudiate the classic picture of the ‘bourgeois enclave’(R. McManus, and P. Etherigton, ‘Suburbs
in transition: new approaches to suburban history’,Urban History, 34 (2007), 317–18, 322). As indicated,
however, this did not apply to Johannesburg where suburbs carried an exclusive race and class distinction.
18
D. Bowker, ‘Parks and baths, sport recreation and municipal government and the working class in
Ashton-under-Lyne between the wars’, in R. Holt (ed.), Sport and the Working Class in Modern Britain
(Manchester, 1990), 84.
19
McShane, ‘The past and future of local swimming pools’, 195; and N. Katzer, ‘Introduction: sports sta-
dia and modern urbanism’,Urban History, 37 (2010), 249.
20
B.M. Doyle, ‘A decade of urban history: Ashgate’s Historical Urban Studies series’,Urban History,36
(2009), 501–2, 505.
21
S. Couperus, ‘Research in urban history: recent theses on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
municipal administration’,Urban History, 37 (2010), 322.
22
L. Robinson and P. Taylor, ‘The performance of local authority sports halls and swimming pools in
England’,Managing Leisure, 8 (2003), 1.
23
C. Love, ‘Local aquatic empires: the municipal provision of swimming pools in England, 1828–1918’,
International Journal of the History of Sport, 24 (2007), 620; and C. Love, ‘Holborn, Lambeth and
Manchester: three case studies in municipal swimming pool provision’,International Journal of the
History of Sport, 24 (2007), 630–42.
Urban History 3
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came from municipalities.
24
This article likewise makes a contribution to this
under-researched field.
In their reflections on urban development in South Africa, scholars used the
prism of modernist planning.
25
South African cities became ‘monuments to pro-
gress and modernity…equalling any modern counterpart in Europe and North
America’.
26
Right from the start, the defining character of Johannesburg was its
connection with the fabric, trends and cultural style of London, Paris and
New York. Frisby’s observation that ‘the culture of modernity became synonymous
with the culture of the metropolis’
27
rings true for Johannesburg. It was first and
foremost a metropolis in every conceivable sense of the term. In fact, the entire his-
tory of its built structures testifies to ‘its inscription into the canons of modern
Western urban aesthetics’.
28
During the 1920s and 1930s, the council indeed embarked on a concerted effort
at modernization,
29
of which the construction of swimming baths was part. This
article taps into this by demonstrating that the architectural form of swimming
baths reflected these trends. As well as being functional –as manifested in contem-
porary design, facilities, construction, standardization and the implementation of
new technologies –they became significant visible physical manifestations of the
council’s initiative to change white Johannesburg into a ‘modern city’. This notion
is a leitmotiv throughout this article.
Finally, questions of ‘locality’,‘place promotion’,‘selling cities’and ‘civic
boosterism’became a popular topic amongst geographers and historians.
30
As pub-
lic social spaces, swimming baths were physical manifestations of municipal grand-
eur and pride of the city. Indeed, the swimming bath, as a building type, was a
cultural and architectural artifact
31
to be celebrated. This article speaks to this
aspect, emphasizing efforts to sell the Johannesburg of the 1930s.
Context
Subsequent to the South African War (1899–1902), Johannesburg experienced
steady population growth and a marked economic upswing. However, it was espe-
cially after World War I that its economic potential was unleashed. The 1920s and
1930s witnessed major investment in the mines and expanding industries grew
exponentially. Following the 1922 white miners’strike, capitalists, supported by
24
McShane, ‘The past and future of local swimming pools’, 195.
25
S. Brooks and P. Harrison, ‘A slice of modernity: planning for the city and the country in Britain and
Natal, 1900–1950’,South African Geographical Journal, 80 (1998), 93–100; and D. Scott, ‘“Creative destruc-
tion”: early modernist planning in the south Durban industrial zone, South Africa’,Journal of Southern
African Studies, 29 (2003), 235–59.
26
Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 79.
27
D. Frisby, Cityscapes of Modernity: Critical Explorations (Cambridge, 2001), 161.
28
Mbembe and Nuttall, ‘Writing the world’, 361.
29
C.M. Chipkin, Johannesburg Style: Architecture and Society, 1880s–1960s (Cape Town, 1993), 10.
30
P.J. Larkham and K.D. Lilley, ‘Plans, planners and city images: place promotion and civic boosterism in
British reconstruction planning’,Urban History, 30 (2003), 184; C.W.J. Withers, ‘Place and the ‘‘spatial
turn’’ in geography and in history’,Journal of the History of Ideas, 70 (2009), 638. For South African cities,
see Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 131.
31
Van Leeuwen, The Springboard in the Pond, 12.
4 Louis Grundlingh
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the government, were able to disempower the workforce.
32
While the Great
Depression impeded economic growth to a marked degree, Johannesburg experi-
enced a massive economic boom after South Africa abandoned the gold standard
in 1932. The world price of gold doubled and the Witwatersrand’s mining-driven
economy took off as a result of the reopening of previously marginal mines and the
discovery of new reserves on the West Rand in 1935.
33
Chipkin captured the eco-
nomic mood and its impact: ‘it was part of that gold bondage that gave
Johannesburg its exuberance and the trite name of “City of Gold”’.
34
After this ‘economic miracle’, all economic records were broken.
35
The sudden
increase in wealth strengthened cultural and architectural connections with Europe
and North America. Johannesburg entered the 1920s and 1930s with a bravura that
supported its appetite for new –and preferably imported –ideas and trends.
36
This
was reflected in modernist multi-storey buildings, up-market retail stores and
impressive skyscrapers, many built according to the Art Deco style. They became
an ‘unmistakable imprint of contemporary New York of the 1930s’,
37
and were
given ‘favourable sobriquets such as “Wonder of the Modern World”and
“Miracle of the Empire”’.
38
‘Place-sellers’justifiably marketed Johannesburg as a
‘world city’.
39
This mindset filtered down to the cultural landscape. Add theatres,
cinemas, public parks, a zoo, racecourses and sport facilities, and a picture emerges
of a city that worked hard, played hard and was not afraid to splash out on its pleas-
ure palaces.
40
Swimming baths and their design, built during this time, reflected
this environment.
However, there was a darker side to this. The prosperity strengthened the geog-
raphy of racial, cultural, economic and class segregation.
41
Consequently, geo-
graphic expansion to accommodate the fast-growing population influx followed
the same pattern. This arrangement had, of course, a major debilitating effect on
the lives of Johannesburg’s black population, reflecting the realities of racialized
municipal politics. So, despite the enormous boost in Johannesburg’s economy dur-
ing the 1930s, little was spent on black recreational facilities. The council only
32
J. Hyslop, ‘The imperial working class makes itself “white”: white labourism in Britain, Australia, and
South Africa before the First World War’,Journal of Historical Sociology, 12 (1999), 398–421.
33
J.R. Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg (Johannesburg, 1966), 358.
34
C.M. Chipkin, Johannesburg Transition: Architecture and Society from 1950 (Newtown, 2008), 99.
35
Beavon, Johannesburg, 93 and 110. See Bickford-Smith for the growth in gold production.
Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 30.
36
J. Foster, ‘The wilds and the township: articulating modernity, capital, and socio-nature in the cityscape
of pre-apartheid Johannesburg’,Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 71 (2012), 43. In consid-
ering how to achieve greater urban order and improvement, municipalities constantly drew on ideas and
practices from abroad. These informed initiatives like provision of recreational space. Bickford-Smith,
The Emergence, 155.
37
G.-M. Van der Waal, From Mining Camp to Metropolis: The Buildings of Johannesburg, 1886–1940
(Melville, 1986), 168; and M. Latilla, Johannesburg: Then and Now (Cape Town, 2018), 73 and 29.
38
Van der Waal, From Mining Camp to Metropolis, 171–2.
39
Chipkin, Johannesburg Style, 90; and Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 189.
40
C. Van Rensburg, Johannesburg. Eenhonderd Jaar (Johannesburg, 1986), 53, 58, 59, 168, 177, 187.
41
In 1936, there were 230,566 (or 40.7 per cent)Afrikaans-speakers and 290,853 (or 51.4 per cent)
English-speakers in Johannesburg, thus confirming the continued dominance of British political, social
and cultural power in the city (E.L.P. Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, Deel 2, 1924–1961 (Pretoria,
1986), 11).
Urban History 5
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opened the first public swimming bath for blacks at the Wemmer Hostel site in
1936.
42
Johannesburg was thus fashioned as a British city. On a material level, architec-
ture, monuments, naming of streets and suburbs were indistinguishable from those
of Britain,
43
reinforcing a sense of belonging. Similarly, British sporting culture
heavily influenced South African sport, such as cricket and rugby. Swimming, like-
wise, was a British-inspired sport activity.
44
All these factors impacted on the pro-
vision and design as well as structure of sport and leisure facilities, thus adding
another component to Johannesburg’s British identity.
Sharing the same identity, the so-called ‘labour aristocracy’, i.e. the
English-speaking artisans and mine-workers with a ‘sense of “Britishness”’,
45
settled in the south-east. Not at all part of this powerful identity were white
Afrikaans-speaking miners and unskilled labourers. They lived mostly in the emer-
ging suburbs to the south-west where housing was cheaper. They became known as
the ‘poor whites’.
46
Local political power was in the hands of English-speaking, middle-class males
with extensive social and economic links to mining and trade
47
and they con-
trolled Johannesburg’s municipal government for almost the entire twentieth cen-
tury. They kept a tight rein on the management of the city. Aware of the latest
technologies and practices and anxious to participate in international discourse,
they embraced urban modernity and dominated public opinion on the architectural
features of the city.
48
Hence, political decisions on the layout and use of public
open spaces –as well as swimming baths –were profoundly informed by British
designs.
49
Maud identified the core business of the council to ensure the wealth, health and
happiness of its residents. However, according to him, until the late 1920s, the
council neglected its obligation to health and happiness in favour of wealth.
50
This criticism might have been too harsh. Since the 1900s, the council, as did
the gold mining companies, accepted responsibility for allocating urban open
42
J.P.R. Maud, City Government: The Johannesburg Experiment (Oxford, 1938), 149. For a more exten-
sive discussion of sport and recreational facilities for blacks, see A.G. Cobley, The Rules of the Game:
Struggles in Black Recreation and Social Welfare Policy in South Africa, Contributions in Afro-American
and African Studies, 182 (Greenwood, 1997), 27–30; and C.M. Badenhorst, ‘Mines, missionaries and the
municipality: organised African sport and recreation in Johannesburg c. 1920–1950 (Ann Arbor, 1994).
43
J. Lambert, ‘South African British? Or Dominion South Africans? The evolution of an identity in the
1910s and 1920s’,South African Historical Journal, 43 (2000); J. Lambert, ‘“An unknown people”: recon-
structing British South African identity’,Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 37 (2009), 604;
and Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 8, 19, 69, 76.
44
C. Love, ‘“Taking a refreshing dip”: health, cleanliness and the empire’,International Journal of the
History of Sport, 24 (2007), 704.
45
P. Harrison and T. Zack, ‘Between the ordinary and the extraordinary: socio-spatial transformations in
the “old south”of Johannesburg’,South African Geographical Journal, 96 (2014), 184.
46
Beavon, Johannesburg, 88, 110, 117; and Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad,19–20, 22.
47
Maud, City Government, 162.
48
Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, 14, 50, 108, 148.
49
Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 12, 155. Pick observed a similar phenomenon for American cities.
Pick, ‘The development of baths and pools’, 36.
50
Maud, City Government, 111.
6 Louis Grundlingh
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spaces and building facilities for leisure activities.
51
Indicative of the growing social
awareness amongst council members, various types of recreational facilities such as
tennis courts, bowling greens and, indeed, swimming baths were constructed.
52
Further building and expansion
Maud earmarks 1928 as the year in which the council invested in major infrastruc-
tural improvements and community services. For example, storm water drainage
and road construction were upgraded whilst building started on new gas works,
a new electricity power station and a new library. Significantly, these projects
were ‘the first-fruits of that fertilizing flood of capital expenditure which after
1927 the council poured out in more and more copious streams’.
53
Bickford-Smith remarks: ‘By the early 20th century it had become the objective
of civic authorities…to build aesthetically more pleasing cities, prompted by com-
bined desire for private glory and communal benefit.’
54
The building of six baths
between 1927 and 1932 was part of this endeavour.
55
As elsewhere, they would
not solely be functional. They also became symbols of municipal modernity and
tangible evidence of civic ideals and pride. Additionally, they were built for the pub-
lic good and not for private gain. As in America and Britain, they would rank
alongside town halls, parks, libraries and other major public buildings as showcases
of municipal activity and place-selling.
56
Not surprisingly then, Johannesburg
obtained city status on 5 September 1928.
57
Until 1921, Johannesburg only had one swimming bath for whites at Ellis Park,
Doornfontein, built in 1908–09. Rising living standards amongst white suburba-
nites created an increase in the number of ratepayers who harboured demands of
their own. For them, one swimming bath was inadequate for Johannesburg’s
fast-growing white suburbs. Hence, requests to build more baths became
51
L. Grundlingh, ‘“Parks in the veld”: the Johannesburg Town Council’s efforts to create leisure parks,
1900s–1920s’,Journal of Cultural History, 26 (2012), 83–105; L. Grundlingh, ‘“Imported intact from
Britain and reflecting elements of empire”: Joubert Park, Johannesburg as a leisure space, c. 1890s–
1930s’,South African Journal of Art History, 30 (2015), 94–118; L. Grundlingh, ‘Transforming a waste
land to a world class sporting arena –the case of Elllis Park Johannesburg 1900–1930s’,Historia,62
(2017), 27–45; and L. Grundlingh, ‘“In Johannesburg, baths are a necessity, not a luxury.”The establish-
ment of Johannesburg’s first municipal swimming bath, 1900s–1910s’,New Contree, 81 (2018), 1–26.
52
Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg, 653; and Van der Waal, From Mining Camp to Metropolis,
216.
53
Capital expenditure rose from £221,599 in 1926/27 and passed a million pounds in 1930/31. Maud,
City Government, 85.
54
Bickford-Smith, The Emergence, 12.
55
Nearby municipalities, such as Germiston and Benoni, already had swimming baths and regularly
hosted swimming and water polo competitions. Similar competitions took place at swimming baths at
the mines. Readex Newsbank, Rand Daily Mail, 23 Feb. 1903, 14 Mar., 14 and 28 Dec. 1904.
56
D. Glassberg, ‘The design of reform: the public bath movement in America’,American Studies,20
(1979), 19; I. Gordon and S. Inglis, Great Lengths: The Historic Indoor Swimming Pool of Britain
(Swindon, 2009), 12, 51, 173; and J. Smith, Liquid Assets: The Lido and Open Air Swimming Pools of
Britain (London, 2005), 19.
57
Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg, 350.
Urban History 7
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increasingly vociferous, especially in their demands that suburban school children
should be catered for.
58
In England, ratepayers’associations indeed successfully contested but also sup-
ported plans for the built environment.
59
Likewise, Johannesburg’s white rate-
payers’associations became a force to be reckoned with. Their calls for
higher-quality swimming facilities, such as treated water, and for an increase in
the provision of municipal bathing facilities during the inter-war years, played an
important role in realizing their demands.
60
The first of these new baths was built at the so-called ‘Wemmer Pan’in the sub-
urb of Turffontein.
61
Wemmer Pan was originally a quarry to the south of
Johannesburg. Later, it became a popular leisure resort for fishing and yachting.
The council readily approved the site,
62
as the resort offered all the facilities for
recreation in one convenient and accessible spot.
63
In addition, the majority of
the neighbouring suburbs favoured the development.
64
It was envisioned that
improvement plans ‘should rescue the Pan from its present comparative obscur-
ity’.
65
Subsequently, the council sanctioned £13,200 for the project.
66
In addition,
it acquired 35 acres of land adjacent to Wemmer Pan and the right to use the
pan for pleasure boating.
67
Councillor C.H. Brooks, chairman of the Parks and Estates Committee, was very
proud of the transformation from a fairly underdeveloped pan to one that could now
boast a ‘splendid bath’.
68
The Star reported that the residents were soon to find that
‘Doornfontein is not the only pebble on the beach.’
69
Members of the nearby commu-
nities had high hopes that the Wemmer Pan swimming bath and the other facilities on
offer, such as the boats on the pan, would make it one of Johannesburg’s principal
pleasure resorts.
70
This indeed happened. The popularity of the bath increased after
a direct tram route from the city centre to Turffontein opened on 3 August 1923.
71
58
University of the Witwatersrand, William Cullen Library, Historical Papers (Wits/WCL/HP), AF 1913,
Johannesburg Public Library Paper Clippings (JPLPC), file 320, Rand Daily Mail (RDM), 26 Dec. 1921.
59
D.J. Ellis, ‘Pavement politics: community action in Leeds, c. 1960–1990’, University of York Ph.D. thesis,
2015, 7–26.
60
Pick, ‘The development of baths and pools’, 33; and Bowker, ‘Parks and baths’, 86.
61
The pan was south of a major mining complex and was also known as Pioneer Park. See G.H.T. Hart,
‘An introduction to the anatomy of Johannesburg’s southern suburbs’,South African Geographical Journal,
50 (1968), 65–72, for a description of this area.
62
Municipal Offices, Johannesburg, Law Library, minutes of the town council (MO/Jhb/LL, MTC), 349th
meeting, 2 Nov. 1917, 613. As a result of World War I, the plan was postponed.
63
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, Star, 25 Jan. 1920.
64
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 395th meeting, 12 Oct. 1920, 727. By now, Afrikaans-speaker working-class fam-
ilies also settled in the southern suburbs such as Forest Hill, La Rochelle and Turffontein with Jews and
Portuguese. The area thus represented a cosmopolitan character. Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, 21.
65
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, Star, 5 Jan. 1920.
66
This was a substantial amount, being more or less £650,000 in today’s terms.
67
Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg, 652. Noteworthy is the fact that, due to earlier property devel-
opment, the council barely ‘owned’any land. Maud, City Government, 263. Consequently, obtaining land
for recreational purposes became a costly affair.
68
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 28 Dec. 1921.
69
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, Star, 22 Nov. 1921.
70
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, Star, 4 Apr. 1922.
71
Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg, 895.
8 Louis Grundlingh
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In July 1927, courtesy of the administrator of the Transvaal Province,
72
J.H.
Hofmeyr,
73
the council obtained a loan of £50,000, of which £25,000 was ear-
marked for additional swimming baths.
74
This was a bonanza for the council
because previously the municipal budget had to be balanced without any assistance
from the provincial or the central government.
75
The loan enabled the council to
launch an extensive building programme to provide sporting facilities. The Rand
Daily Mail lauded the administrator, who ‘recognized that Johannesburg is firmly
resolved to keep abreast of the times in the matter of adequate facilities for improv-
ing the health and physique of its future residents’.
76
Based on this additional income, construction of three additional baths, com-
menced: at Zoo Lake (see Figure 1), Rhodes Park and Paterson Park.
77
They
were all near English-speaking middle-classes suburbs and in line with the council’s
policy to provide swimming baths according to local demands.
As was the case with similar purchases, the land thus served a dual purpose, for a
park and a swimming bath.
78
This was in keeping with the modern tendency to
redefine the purpose of urban parks, as had become common practice in
London.
79
Ellis Park was the definitive example of a leisure space initially demar-
cated as a park and then being transformed into a space exclusively for sporting
activities.
80
Before the severity of the Great Depression impeded any ambitious economic
development, a further three baths were constructed. The local sport clubs played
a key role. For example, the Yeoville Sports Club used land already owned by the
Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Co. The company was willing to transfer
the land to the council, ensuring that a swimming bath could be built for use by
residents of Yeoville and Observatory suburbs.
81
The same philosophy that was followed in Yeoville was applied when
the Mayfair and Malvern baths were built. Here, too, sport complexes were
developed catering, inter alia, for football fields, cricket pitches and swimming
72
After 1994, the Transvaal Province was divided into four provinces: Gauteng, North-West, Limpopo
and Mpumalanga.
73
He was administrator of the Transvaal from 1924 to 1929.
74
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 8 Jul. 1927. The previous year, the Parks and Estates
Committee only received £7,000, which was £20,000 short of the budget (Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC,
file 320, RDM, 26 Jul. 1927).
75
Maud, City Government, 290.
76
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 8 Jul. 1927. The city’s white residents were fairly
healthy. The death rate amongst the city’s white residents was 10 per 1,000. Address by the medical health
officer of Johannesburg, Dr Charles Porter, 2 Feb. 1925. Wits/ WCL/ HP, A3023, S. Parnell Papers, 1906–
99, A2, Municipal Magazine, Aug. 1925, 17b. This figure remained steady between 1923 and 1936. In con-
trast, the death rate amongst blacks fluctuated between 17 and 23 per 1,000. Bickford-Smith, The
Emergence, 186.
77
Zoo Lake bath served the Parkview, Parktown North, Parkwood, Rosebank and Melrose suburbs (MO/
Jhb/LL, MTC, 504th meeting, 27 Mar. 1928, 170), Rhodes Park bath the Kensington suburb and Patterson
Park bath the Orange Grove and Norwood suburbs (MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 510th meeting, 25 Sep. 1928, 755).
78
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, Star, 25 Jan. 1928.
79
M.O. Hannikainen, ‘Sport in London’s public green spaces in the inter-war years’,Sport in History,38
(2018), 331–64.
80
Grundlingh, ‘Transforming a waste land’,27–45.
81
MO/Jhb,LL, MTC, 518th meeting, 28 May 1929, 447–8.
Urban History 9
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baths.
82
The council purchased the necessary land from the nearby Langlaagte Estate
and Gold Mining Co. Ltd, an area of approximately 2½ acres, costing £50 per acre.
83
Significantly, the Mayfair bath was the only one constructed in the south-western sub-
urbs, where most of the residents were white working-class Afrikaans-speakers.
84
As indicated earlier, the other swimming baths were in the prestigious northern
and north-eastern suburbs, away from the industrial noise and grime of the city
where white, middle-class English-speakers predominated. Ratepayers in these suburbs
received preferential treatment in the provision of swimming baths from the council.
This was in stark contrast to its provision in the poorer white Afrikaner working-class
areas. Apart from the Mayfair swimming bath, only two additional swimming baths
were built in these areas much later. Clearly, class and ethnic politics were at play in
municipal circles. However, it must also be kept in mind that Afrikaners had no trad-
ition of swimming. It was initially an English-speaking elitist sport, especially practised
by the English-speaking communities on the coast, i.e. Durban and Cape Town. This
tradition was maintained by English-speakers in Johannesburg.
After negotiations with the Malvern Lawn Tennis Club, the council purchased two
stands at £1,000.
85
Despite the fact that the Malvern bath took another two years to
complete, the Rand Daily Mail described it as yet another addition to Johannesburg’s
‘generous number’of baths.
86
The total capital expenditure to construct all these baths
was £160,000,
87
indicating the commitment of the council to invest in the baths.
Figure 1. Zoo Lake swimming bath, 2020.
Source: https://swimhistory.co.za/index.php/locations/tvl-prov/transvaal/johannesburg/jhb-pools, accessed 26 April
2020.
82
Maud, City Government, 149 and 352.
83
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 514th meeting, 22 Jan. 1929, 36.
84
F.S. Parnell, ‘Council housing provision for whites in Johannesburg, 1920–1955’, University of the
Witwatersrand, MA thesis, 1987, 38.
85
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 534th meeting, 25 Sep. 1930, 820.
86
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1932.
87
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1931. To put this into perspective, to only run
and maintain the swimming bath at Ashton-under-Lyne came to £80,000 during the inter-war years, an
amount Bowker described as ‘costly’. Bowker, ‘Parks and baths’, 85.
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As indicated, after South Africa left the gold standard, the positive effect on
Johannesburg’s economic growth was dramatic. The property and the building
industry reflected this with some prices quadrupling between 1930 and 1936
(Table 1).
Johannesburg thus became a city where there was plenty of money for such pro-
jects. Within this context, the further provision of swimming baths became pos-
sible, as the budget for 1930 reflected.
88
However, this would take another few
years to come to fruition and was realized only in two suburbs.
89
A report laid
before the council in June 1936 stated that because of the increase in the population
in the north-western areas, the Mayfair swimming bath was inadequate. The upshot
was that the council approved the construction of swimming baths in the Brixton
and Melville suburbs.
90
In Brixton, the land belonged to the council, which eased the pressure on its cof-
fers significantly.
91
However, this was not the case in Melville. The council had to
purchase a site, of 7¾ acres for £285 per acre,
92
for the construction of the proposed
swimming bath. It would, however, take another three years to complete (see
Figure 2).
93
The Brixton and Melville projects wrapped up the council’s major
scheme of providing swimming baths.
Design, construction and maintenance
The growth in aquatic sport and training, as well as recreational use of the baths,
informed additional needs and demands for swimming baths in the 1930s. F.R.
Table 1. An indication of Johannesburg’s phenomenal economic growth in the mid-1930s
Value of building plans
1934 £5,920,929
1935 £5,840,155 Within first 6 months
1936 £9,775,180 Thrice that of 1930
Land values, 1933–36
Industrial sites £1,200 sold for £3,000
City stands £16,000 sold for £35,000
Suburbs stands £450 sold for £1,000
City assets
1934 £16,000,000
Annual expenditure
1934 £3,000,000
1937 £3,800,000
Source: Wits/WCL, Municipal Magazine, 17 (1934), 1; 18 (1934), 7; 18 (1935) 5, 11, 23; 19 (1936), 5, 7; and 20 (1937), 15.
88
Shorten, Die Verhaal van Johannesburg, 535–6.
89
It is not clear why more swimming baths were not built during the initial period of prosperity in the
mid-1930s. Van der Waal is of the opinion that it was perhaps ‘due to a diminished social awareness during
the prosperous years’. Van der Waal, From Mining Camp to Metropolis, 216.
90
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 603th meeting, 23 Jun. 1936, 822–3. Johannesburg’s white population doubled
from 250,000 to half a million between 1932 and 1937. Wits/WCL, Municipal Magazine, 20 (1937), 15.
91
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 20 Nov. 1935.
92
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, special meeting, 6 Oct. 1936, 1238. This was decidedly more than the £50 per acre
paid for the Mayfair bath.
93
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 644th meeting, 21 Nov. 1939, 1531.
Urban History 11
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Long, president of the Association of Superintendents of Public Parks and Gardens,
was well aware of the changing demands for parks and open spaces of the ‘leisured
section’of Johannesburg’s ratepayers. Due to shorter working hours, leisure time
and demand to spend these hours outdoors increased. Long acknowledged that
‘the phenomenal growth of our parks, open spaces and swimming baths has already
caught us to some extent unawares…The ratepayers now also want their golf, bowls,
tennis and bathing facilities.’
94
The 1920s and 1930s can well be considered the most exciting era in swimming bath
design.
95
The popularization of swimming and of water polo as spectator sports had a
marked effect on the design and accessorization of baths. New reinforced concrete
construction and Art Deco style –that lent itself well to recreational architecture –
ensured that swimming baths became an ‘iconic symbol of 1930s municipal glamour’.
96
The purpose-built, open-air Tooting Bec Lido
97
was representative of these modern
ideas on hygiene, beauty of design, layout, comfort and recreation.
98
In New York,
no expenses were spared in the quality of the baths built during this time, ‘each pool
turned out to be a “municipal marvel of the first magnitude”’.
99
Although not as lavish,
Johannesburg’s swimming baths of the 1930s did not lag behind.
Figure 2. Brixton swimming bath, reflecting Art Deco architectural style.
Source: https://swimhistory.co.za/index.php/locations/tvl-prov/transvaal/johannesburg/jhb-pools, accessed 26 April
2020.
94
Wits/WCL, Municipal Magazine, 19 (1936), 13–15. Wiltse makes a similar point regarding America.
Wiltse, Contested Waters, 93.
95
Gordon and Inglis, Great Lengths, 175.
96
H. Pussard, ‘Historicising the spaces of leisure: open-air swimming and the lido movement in
England’,World Leisure Journal, 49 (2007), 180.
97
Lidos, apart from the swimming bath, included cafes, fountains, ballrooms and sunbathing terraces.
Pussard, ‘Historicising the spaces of leisure’, 181; and K. Worpole, Here Comes the Sun: Architecture
and Public Space in Twentieth Century European Culture (London, 2000), 113.
98
For a detailed discussion of British baths, see Smith, Liquid Assets.
99
N. Adiv, ‘Paidia meets Ludus: New York City municipal pools and the infrastructure of play’,Social
Science History, 39 (2015), 437.
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The council deliberately sanctioned additional funds for the layout of the
grounds surrounding the swimming bath.
100
A reporter of the Rand Daily Mail
confirmed that, ‘Apart from the delights of the cool water, the baths are each
year being made more attractive.’
101
As sunbathing became increasingly popular,
specific areas for this purpose now formed part of the layout.
102
This replicated
the New Brighton Lido, where a huge area was devoted to open benches and spe-
cific sunbathing zones, enabling people to develop ‘bronzed’bodies.
103
The director of the local Parks Department, D. Smith, in comparing these facil-
ities with similar ones in England and Scotland, concluded that Johannesburg’s
baths were even better as few of the overseas baths, he claimed, had lawns, gardens
and facilities for sunbathing.
104
As form and function changed, the design, fabric
and construction of baths adjusted accordingly.
105
Clearly, the town engineer’s rec-
ommendation that the best baths be constructed, conforming to international com-
petitive standards, was adhered to.
106
This was another attempt by the council to
stake the city’s claim as a ‘world class city’.
The amenities at the baths reflected a ‘differential architecture’in two ways. First,
there was a gendered differential, i.e. ‘male’and ‘female’sections. Secondly, separate
changing cubicles (‘dressing boxes’) were installed around the bath’s perimeter with
clearly distinguishable private spaces. This resulted in what Crook describes rather
quaintly as an ‘interplay of exposure and enclosure’.
107
The amenities at the
Wemmer Pan swimming bath, as well as subsequent baths, reflected both these
requirements. With the introduction of mixed bathing,
108
and the consequent
need for more personal privacy, separate dressing cubicles were built for women
and men. This planning had the additional advantage of ‘proper supervision’.
109
One of the age-old problems in swimming bath management is water quality. Before
the twentieth century, water quality was maintained through the so-called ‘fill and
empty’process. This meant that the baths were emptied on a Sunday and filled
100
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 521st meeting, 27 Aug. 1929, 704, and MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 526th meeting, 25 Jan.
1930.
101
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1931.
102
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 580th meeting, 24 Jul. 1934, 813.
103
Marino, ‘The emergence of municipal baths’, 41.
104
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, Star, 31 Oct. 1934, and Wits/WCL, HP, AF 1913, JPLPC,
file 447, Star, 3 Sep. 1938. In America, bath design also catered for leisure spaces. Hence, ‘lounging, sun-
bathing, and socializing became quintessential pool activities’. Wiltse, Contested Waters, 88, 99.
105
Marino, ‘The emergence of municipal baths’, 39; and C. Parker, ‘Improving the “condition”of the
people: the health of Britain and the provision of public baths 1840–1870’,Sports Historian, 20 (2000), 36.
106
The baths were all constructed with concrete walls, lined on the sides with glazed tiles and the bottom
of concrete blocks. MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 398th meeting, 21 Jan. 1921, 46.
107
T. Crook, ‘“Schools for the moral training of the people”: public baths, liberalism and the promotion of
cleanliness in Victorian Britain’,European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire, 13 (2006), 31, 38.
Also see Kossuth, ‘Dangerous waters’, 807; and H. Eichberg, ‘The enclosure of the body. On the historical
relativity of health, nature and the environment of sport’,Journal of Contemporary History, 21 (1986), 110.
108
In Johannesburg, mixed bathing became common practice as early as 1914. The only exception was
that Friday afternoons were exclusively for women and Sundays for men. MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 297th meeting,
24 Apr. 1914, 217. This was in sharp contrast to the United Kingdom where many baths set aside just a few
hours per week for women. A.C. Parker, ‘An urban historical perspective: swimming a recreational and
competitive pursuit 1840 to 1914’, University of Stirling, Ph.D. thesis, 2003, 107–8.
109
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 395th meeting, 12 Oct. 1920, 727.
Urban History 13
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again on a Monday with fresh water. According to Bowker, this weekly water change
meant that there were ‘fresh water days’and ‘dirty water days’.
110
As no other process
was available at the time, this system was also implemented at the Ellis Park bath, neces-
sitating the closure of the bath on a Sunday afternoon and the following Monday.
111
By the late nineteenth century, the ‘germ theory’and a growing corpus of bacterio-
logical and chemical studies
112
resulted in major technological advances in water puri-
fication, thus quelling concerns about ‘dirty water’.
113
Furthermore, a system of
recirculating to disinfect the water through filtration
114
was developed.
115
Well
aware of the problem, Johannesburg’s municipality installed such a water purifying
system at the Ellis Park bath in October 1922, at a cost of £5,000.
116
The introduction
of chlorine in the 1930s was the final step in a process whereby baths brought hygiene
to the masses. As a consequence, there was a rise in recreational swimming.
The Star quelled any doubts the public might have had, maintaining that the
‘water in which Johannesburg swimmers bathe is actually purer than drinking
water’.
117
Love’s observation that ‘to bathe, wash or swim in clean water is an obvi-
ous antidote to contact with the dirt of contemporary urban life’
118
rings true of
Johannesburg, being afflicted by unhygienic air, often laden with mine dust.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, a high standard of water quality seven days a
week was maintained.
119
This was another demonstration of the progress in new
and modern technology of which Johannesburg was now part.
Furthermore, the council committed itself to frequent maintenance of the baths
which were renovated and painted regularly.
120
According to the Rand Daily Mail,
few people realized the enormous amount of work necessary in maintaining the
swimming baths. During the closed season, there were ‘armies’of workmen busy
with maintenance of the baths.
121
This ensured that the baths were indeed an
asset to the fabric of a respectable and modern city.
In 1928, the Ellis Park bath was earmarked for extensive modernizing in accord-
ance with international requirements.
122
Due to financial constraints,
123
these
110
Bowker, ‘Parks and baths’, 87. Hayes confirms that the early baths were indeed known for their ‘dirty
water’.W.Hayes,‘The professional swimmer, 1860–1880s’,Sports Historian, 22 (2002), 137.
111
Grundlingh, ‘Transforming a waste land’, 20.
112
Pick, ‘The development of baths and pools’, 57. Also see M.T. Williams, Washing ‘The Great
Unwashed’: Public Baths in Urban America (Columbus, 1991), 129.
113
Love, ‘“Taking a refreshing dip”’, 701–2.
114
It was known as the Turnover System and was supplied by the Turnover Filter Co. of Belfast.
115
Batstone, ‘Health and recreation’, 111.
116
Wits/WCL/ HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 27 Oct. 1922.
117
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, Star, 23 Aug. 1923. In America, the poor image of swim-
ming bath water was fought with campaigns, advertising the magic of modern filtering techniques with the
slogan ‘Some people drink filtered water. We bathe in it.’Van Leeuwen, The Springboard in the Pond, 46.
118
Love, ‘“Taking a refreshing dip”’, 694.
119
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 1 Sep. 1937.
120
MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 525th meeting, 17 Dec. 1929, 1056; Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452,
RDM, 31 Aug. 1936; Wits/WCL/ HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, Star, 3 Sep. 1938; and Wits/WCL/ HP,
AF 1913, JPLPC, file 307, RDM, 22 Aug. 1940.
121
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 1 Sep. 1937; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC,
file 447, RDM,31 Aug. 1938.
122
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 4 Jan. 1928.
123
Wits/WCL, Municipal Magazine, 18 (1935), 11.
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improvements were only completed in 1938, but once completed did indeed
include most of the envisioned improvements suggested in 1928.
124
The new mod-
ernistic building now boasted, inter alia, a children’s paddling pool, modern change
cubicles, a three-tiered water cascade, an impressive fountain in the centre of an
enlarged lawn and a special sunbathing porch, where ‘bathers and worshippers
of “King Sol”may bask undisturbed’.
125
Suntans, once derided in fashionable cir-
cles, ‘became a badge of health and glamour’, gaining momentum during the
1930s.
126
This point did not escape Geo Neal Luntz. He linked the context of living
in Johannesburg and the necessity for a swimming bath as follows: ‘In a climate
such as ours…the hot weather enables bathers to remain much longer in the
water, thus obtaining a double benefit from the exercise of swimming and for
exposure to the sun –one of the great benefits of bathing.’
127
Special attention was given to facilities for diving, the council approving a hefty
£10,000 for a modern high-diving platform
128
that complied with international reg-
ulations,
129
making it possible for Ellis Park to host South African national and
international diving events.
130
A.C.C. St Norman, the superintendent of the
baths, was astonished that the council had indeed been so successful in undertaking
these extensive additions.
131
According to Van Leeuwen, swimming baths ‘make an indispensable contribu-
tion to the reading of twentieth-century architectural modernism’,
132
whilst Marino
points out that they were seen as ‘grand gestures…demonstrating the municipal
power of a progressive city’.
133
When considering the attention to the layout, amen-
ities, new water purification technologies and consciously ensuring that inter-
national standards were met, the same was true for Johannesburg’s swimming
baths as features of a modern city. In addition, a variety of the latest in modern dur-
able materials were introduced into swimming bath construction either for the first
time or in new ways. In a sense, the baths became modern, standard and common-
place at the same time. Smith had reason to believe that Johannesburg’s swimmers
had ‘as favourable and modern conditions as any in the world’.
134
The fact that
swimming baths were a very expensive item on the Parks and Recreation
124
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 4 Jul. 1936; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file
452, Star, letter from ‘Patron’, 11 Sep. 1937.
125
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, Star, 12 Jan. 1938; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file
447, RDM, 26 Aug. 1938.
126
Gordon and Inglis, Great Lengths, 170.
127
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 9 Aug. 1917.
128
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 4 Jul. 1936.
129
By this time, all swimming baths had diving platforms as standard equipment. Marino, ‘The emer-
gence of municipal baths’, 41; and Smith, Liquid Assets, 35.
130
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 17 Sep. 1937. Worpole points out that the ‘cult of
diving’reached its apotheosis between the wars, epitomized in Riefenstahl’s film made of the 1936
Olympic Games, where the diving sequences astonished cinema audiences by their breath-taking risks
and beauty. Worpole, Here Comes the Sun, 120.
131
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 26 Aug. 1938.
132
Van Leeuwen, The Springboard in the Pond, 31.
133
Marino, ‘The emergence of municipal baths’,35–6.
134
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, Star, 31 Oct. 1934.
Urban History 15
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Department’s budget underscores their importance to the council (see Table 2).
135
Foster quotes Mitchell who situates the modern city as part of an ‘exhibitionary com-
plex’, a product of bourgeois capitalism.
136
The swimming baths were part of this
complex, mirroring urban Johannesburg’s modernity of the 1920s and 1930s.
Bringing Johannesburg’s swimming baths, and especially the Ellis Park bath, up
to date with international standards
137
was thus not incidental. Contextually, it was
part of an elaborate project to showcase Johannesburg as a renowned, modern and
international city, that reached its climax with Johannesburg’s 1936 Empire
Exhibition. Elaborate brochures from the Johannesburg Publicity Association and
the Tourist Bureau of the South African Railways reflected, promoted and cele-
brated Johannesburg’s‘Metropiltan modernity’.
138
The exhibition ‘was celebrating
an urban modernity –the success of Johannesburg’s progress’frequently being
described as a ‘wonder city’or a ‘glorious new city’on a grand scale.
139
The modern
swimming baths were thus one of the building blocks of the city’s image and an
important component of place-selling.
140
Table 2. Cost of building Johannesburg’s swimming baths and an indication of rising prices
Cost of baths
Ellis Park 1909 £5,934
Wemmer Pan 1917 £8,262
Rhodes Park 1928 £10,000
Yeoville 1928 £10,000
Zoo Lake 1928 £10,000
Patterson Park 1929 £10,000
Mayfair 1929 £10,000
Malvern 1932 £10,000
Total capital expenditure £160,000 inclusive of layout and grandstands
Baths built in the middle of the 1930s
Brixton 1936 £15,000
Melville 1938 £23,457
By 1941, the municipality had spent £248,181 on constructing the baths
Sources: MO/Jhb/LL, MTC, 200th meeting 27 May 1908, 1224–7; 514th meeting 22 Jan. 1929, 36; 603th meeting 23 Jun.
1936, 822–3; 635th meeting, 28 Feb. 1939, 204; Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 12 Aug. 1929, Star, 22 May
1930, Star, 18 Oct. 1938, Star, 30 Aug. 1941; file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1932; file 320, RDM, 10 Oct. 1932; file 452, RDM, 20 Nov.
1935, RDM, 4 Jul. 1936.
135
Van der Waal, From Mining Camp to Metropolis, 216.
136
Foster, ‘The wilds’, 45.
137
According to Smith, cities wished to design structures, such as swimming baths, that were in keeping
with the architecture and scale of their European counterparts. A. Smith, ‘Pool life’,Building, 268 (2003),
16, as quoted in Pussard, ‘Historicising the spaces of leisure’, 180. Also see Pick, ‘The development of baths
and pools’, 57.
138
These positive representations only reflected the self-confidence and respectability of Johannesburg’s
anglophile urban elites. There was little promotional material before the 1920s. The initial image of
Johannesburg was that of a coarse and tough mining town. The idea of ‘progress’–as defined by
‘Britishness’–was moot as Johannesburg was frequently depicted as a ‘New Babylon’. A concerted effort
to change this image occurred in 1925 with the establishment of publicity associations. Bickford-Smith, The
Emergence, 13, 14, 132, 158, 171.
139
J. Robinson, ‘Johannesburg’s 1936 Empire Exhibition: interaction, segregation and modernity in a
South African city’,Journal of Southern African Studies, 29 (2003), 761.
140
See Bickford-Smith on place-selling, The Emergence, 162.
16 Louis Grundlingh
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Swimming lessons and training
By the late 1890s, the provision of swimming baths in most towns and cities in
Britain meant that swimming was included in the school time table.
141
Gradually, the necessity for more advanced training in swimming by professional
trainers developed.
142
In Johannesburg, even before the first swimming bath was
built, the need for professional swimming instructors was acknowledged.
143
The
council appointed J. Hancock as the first municipal swimming instructor in
1931, thus making it possible for everyone to learn how to swim free of charge.
Five years later, realizing the importance of swimming lessons, the council
appointed J.W. Harte, a well-known Olympic swimming coach from the United
States, for two years at salary of £600 a year.
144
Sue G. Womble
145
congratulated
the council on Harte’s appointment, saying that his expertise was welcome because
the bath superintendents were not as skilled in ‘the finer art of swimming’. For her,
his appointment made sense as South Africa ranked very low in the world of swim-
ming.
146
By engaging Harte, the council hoped to popularize swimming and swim-
ming competition, thus making full use of the swimming baths.
147
Harte’s coaching gave Johannesburg’s swimmers, as well as swimming in South
Africa, a major boost, resulting in 10 national records being broken in 1937 and placed
South African swimmers and coaches on a par with their counterparts in other parts
of the world.
148
Johannesburg could now boast that its white swimmers could com-
pete internationally and that its swimming baths matched international standards.
Thiswasanotherfeatherinitscaptoitsimageasamodernprogressivecity.
Popularity
By 1924, the Ellis Park bath had already established its popularity among adults and
children alike. So much so, that on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, the crowds
caused considerable congestion.
149
‘Swimmer’complained that Sundays were so
crowded ‘that it is uncomfortable, not to say unpleasant bathing’.
150
‘Swimmer’
was indeed correct. For example, 1,600 people frequented the bath on one of the
Sundays in March 1919,
151
and on a Sunday in January 1927, ‘K.T.’had to wait
141
C. Love, ‘State schools, swimming and physical training’,International Journal of the History of Sport,
24 (2007), 665.
142
K. Myerscough, ‘Nymphs, naiads and natation’,International Journal of the History of Sport,29
(2012), 1914; C. Parker, ‘The rise of competitive swimming’,56–7; and D. Day, ‘London swimming pro-
fessors: Victorian craftsmen and aquatic entrepreneurs’,Sport in History, 30 (2010), 32–54.
143
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, letter from E.J.L.P., Leader, 26 Nov. 1909.
144
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, Star, 30 Nov. 1937.
145
She was a former Transvaal diving champion as well as a University of the Witwatersrand swimming
champion.
146
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, letter from Sue G. Womble, RDM, 29 Sep. 1937.
147
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, RDM, 9 Sep. 1937.
148
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 452, letter from A. Crewe, honorary secretary, Johannesburg
Schools’Amateur Swimming Association, RDM, 7 Oct. 1937.
149
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 26 Dec. 1921; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC
file 498, Star, 6 Dec. 1924.
150
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, letter from ‘Swimmer’,Star, 4 Feb. 1919.
151
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 22 Mar. 1919.
Urban History 17
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over an hour to get a booth because as many as 4,000 people ‘went into the
water’.
152
One Harry Melman looked at the positive side of the congestion, empha-
sizing that the swimming bath was ‘doing extremely well, as it is always crowded to
the utmost’.
153
In the 1930s, the municipal baths maintained their popularity, with many of the
reports indicating that the baths were a major attraction and were usually crowded
(see Table 3). For instance, the Star claimed that at the beginning of spring in
September 1931, crowds flocked there to cool off not only on Sundays but in the
late afternoons on other days.
154
There were also large numbers of early swimmers
who frequented the baths before breakfast.
155
The swimming baths were becoming
increasingly popular, reaching the 2 million mark for attendance during the 1946
season.
156
On the one hand, ‘going to the baths’meant serious training for competitions
while, on the other hand, the majority of patrons partook in the more quotidian
forms of play –splashing, play fighting and flirting. The proximity and accessibility
Table 3. Popularity of swimming baths, measured by growth in attendance
Bath attendance
Attendance: 1926
Ellis Park 136,001
Wemmer Pan 27,001
Milner Park 29,001
Total 192,001
Attendance: 1927
Ellis Park 168,001
Wemmer Pan 36,001
Milner Park 41,001
Total 245,001
1931–32 season 800,001
1934–35 season 1,388,615 Ellis Park bath: 336,633
1935–36 season 1,487,000
1939–40 season Pass 1,500,000
Source: Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 4 Jan. 1928; file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1932, Star, 3 Sep. 1933, RDM,1
Sep. 1943, RDM, 30 Aug. 1947; file 452, Star, 12 Nov. 1935, Star, 31 Aug. 1936; file 447, Star, 30 Aug. 1941; Wits/WCL,
Municipal Magazine, 20 (1936), 11.
152
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, letter from ‘K.T.’,RDM, 21 Jan. 1927.
153
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 498, letter from Harry Melman, Star 6 Dec. 1924. The over-
crowding might not have been a surprise as, according to the South African Official Year Book covering
the period 1910–25 (UG 8–25), Johannesburg’s total white population in 1921 was 151,836. Parnell,
‘Council housing provision’, 16.
154
It should be kept in mind that Johannesburg is land-locked and the summers can be quite hot. There
are no large rivers or lakes in which to cool off. The nearest beach is in Durban, 600 kilometres from
Johannesburg. Gosseye and Hampson confirmed that the hot climate of Queensland likewise made swim-
ming very popular (J. Gosseye and G. Hampson, ‘“Queensland making a splash”: memorial pools and the
body politics of reconstruction’,Queensland Review, 23 (2016), 181). This was not surprising as they share
more or less the same latitudinal zone.
155
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, Star, 30 Oct. 1931; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC,
file 513, Star, Nov. 1933.
156
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 30 Aug. 1947.
18 Louis Grundlingh
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of the baths influenced the lifestyle of many: Saturdays and Sundays became ‘fun
days’for families.
Several factors contributed to the popularity of the swimming baths. From early on,
the various swimming clubs,
157
such as those run by Post Office and municipal staff,
groups of ladies and many schools, ‘were the life-blood in maintaining the popularity
of the baths’.
158
Their regular patronage guaranteed the sustainability of the baths.
159
Furthermore, petrol restrictions during World War II and consequent shortages
contributed to these numbers. More people chose to visit the baths during the
weekends than picnic in the country.
160
A major debate raged in the 1930s over
whether men should be allowed to wear trunks as swimwear. The council enforced
a strict ban that was eventually lifted in the early 1940s. This did much to further
increase the baths’popularity.
161
In assessing the popularity of the baths, the number of spectators should also be
considered. The public enjoyed watching swimming galas,
162
the numbers attend-
ing sometimes outstripping those actually using the bath. The baths evolved from
being a place solely devoted to health, to one geared towards recreation, sport and,
now, entertainment. For urban dwellers, it was an inexpensive amusement spec-
tacle, somewhere that people could witness the abilities of talented professional
swimmers. It became a convenient leisure activity and provided another opportun-
ity for social integration. This was aided by the fact that the baths were designed as
places for viewing and amusement as much as for swimming.
163
Katzer’s statement
that ‘the stadium or whole ensembles of sports arenas, facilities and landscapes
served as places of social transformation’
164
comes to mind.
School galas, in particular, were very popular. The Melville bath is a case in
point, being ‘the most popular bath in Johannesburg’.
165
Its popularity with spec-
tators increased as the bath was open on certain nights as well when the Swimming
League gave demonstrations. Enthusiastic crowds attended competitive swimming
such as the Transvaal Amateur Swimming championships held early in 1940.
166
Gordon and Inglis remarked that, in Britain, ‘By tapping into the public’s seemingly
insatiable appetite for entertainment and sporting activity, baths…evolved into
multi-purpose events venues.’
167
This proved to be true for Johannesburg, as con-
firmed by the Ellis Park sport venue.
157
See Batstone for the important role played by swimming clubs to popularize swimming and hence the
popularity of the baths. Batstone, ‘Health and recreation’, 190.
158
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 23 Jan. 1909.
159
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 320, RDM, 26 Dec. 1921.
160
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 1 Sep. 1943; and Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC,
file 513, RDM, 31 Aug. 1944.
161
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 513, RDM, 31 Aug. 1944.
162
Swimming and other aquatic sports became a popular spectator culture. McShane, ‘The past and
future of local swimming pools’, 197.
163
Smith, Liquid Assets, 45; Love, ‘Holborn, Lambeth and Manchester’, 636; and Gordon and Inglis,
Great Lengths, 60.
164
Katzer, ‘Introduction: sports stadia’, 252.
165
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 27 Jan. 1940.
166
Wits/WCL/HP, AF 1913, JPLPC, file 447, RDM, 27 Jan. 1940.
167
Gordon and Inglis, Great Lengths, 51.
Urban History 19
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Conclusion
The growth in the number of swimming baths in the 1920s and 1930s was enabled
by the rapid geographical expansion of the city and its economic growth –backed
by mining and industrial development. Johannesburg’s swimming baths reflected a
divided society based on race, class and culture. Black Johannesburgers did not have
access and all but three swimming baths were built in middle-class suburbs and
steeped in an all-pervasive British ethos.
The council, as the main protagonist, comprising white English-speaking men,
wielded enormous powers. Nevertheless, they had the well-being of the white resi-
dents at heart. The provision of services such as electricity, water and sanitation
testified to that. Establishing leisure facilities turned out to be just as important. For
example, by the 1920s, public parks had become a standard feature in
Johannesburg’swhitesuburbs.
168
Swimming baths now became the prime focus add-
ing another layer to the leisure facilities of these suburbs, changing the suburban land-
scape. Despite economic restrictions, especially in the late 1920s, the council was eager
to drive the process and pushed ahead. Expenses on swimming baths comprised by
far the main overhead of the city council’s Parks and Recreation portfolio.
This was aided by the growing popularity of and interest in swimming and other
aquatic sports. As such, the council had to take note of the pressure from suburban
residential associations and sport clubs to build additional swimming baths. They fit-
ted seamlessly into the council’s plans and endeavours to modernize Johannesburg,
mirroring modern designs, facilities, construction, standards and the implementation
of new technologies similar to those in Britain and the United States. Accordingly,
they became additional threads in a rapidly evolving modern urban tapestry which
the council was eager to celebrate and showcase.
In addition to Johannesburg’s parks, tennis courts and golf courses, swimming
baths significantly added to the suburban landscape’s leisure facilities. They indeed
became, and henceforth remained, what Bale coins urban ‘sportscapes’.
169
As resi-
dents were now close to the baths, they became very popular,frequented for competi-
tive and recreational purposes. The council further invested in the swimming baths by
making special arrangements to cater for the youth, such as providing coaching.
Doyle captured an emergent trend in urban studies by emphasizing that ‘the
interaction of health and the environment is back on the agenda in a big way’.
170
It is precisely in this relevant and topical area that the article sought to contribute.
168
Grundlingh, ‘“Parks in the veld”’, 105.
169
J. Bale, Sport and Geography, 2nd edn (London, 2003), 4.
170
Doyle, ‘A decade of urban history’, 507.
Cite this article: Grundlingh L (2021). Municipal modernity: the politics of leisure and Johannesburg’s
swimming baths, 1920s to 1930s. Urban History 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S096392682100047X
20 Louis Grundlingh
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