The real hero who overturned beach swimming ban

Bathers branded “indecent” caused such a stir in the 1900s that beach swimming was banned, until one cop swept away the wowsers’ worries.

Boys and girls paddling in neck-to-knee swimming costumes at Beaumaris, Victoria, circa 1906-1914, Picture: State Library Victoria.

In 1902, Manly newspaper owner William Gocher plunged into the ocean dressed in a neck-to-knee bathing suit to challenge the ban on daylight public bathing.

Police arrested him, and the protest forced a change to the law and earned Gocher a place in Australian folklore – or so the oft-told story goes.

But did it really happen?

Gocher is the subject of a new episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

The story appears in a new book called Great Furphies of Australian History, by historian Jim Haynes.

Years after the event, in 1910, Gocher described the protest swims he claimed he staged in 1902.

But Haynes says there’s no evidence of the headlines or stories of the supposed protests by Gocher in police records.

Great Furphies of Australian History, by Jim Haynes.

Postcard showing early 1900s swimming costume. Picture: State Library Victoria.

And according to Haynes, whatever Gocher did at Manly Beach – and accounts vary wildly – had minimal effect on the practice of daylight ocean bathing.

“There’s a plaque at Manly Beach which credits Mr Gocher with being the man who gave us the freedom to swim on the beaches of Sydney, which is quite untrue, because the real hero in this story is actually a policeman,” Haynes says.

And the real catalyst for change came not at Manly, but on the other side of the harbour, at Bondi.

People had been openly swimming at ocean beaches since the 1880s, but there were frequent complaints their swimwear – often homemade – was indecent.

Police were called to Bondi on November 13, 1902, after complaints about improperly clad swimmers.

“Police immediately began taking the names of those clad in small trunks, and they ended up with the names of several respectable men and a well-known clergyman,” Haynes says.

A furore erupted, so Inspector General of Police Edmund Fosbery proposed a commonsense solution.

“Good old Edmund Fosbery … he’d had enough of this,” Haynes says.

“He didn’t want his police officers having to go to the beach and decide on costumes and so on.

“So he said, ‘So long as bathers wear suitable bathing costumes and public decency is not outraged, I am unable to see that a practice permitted for so many years should be stopped.’

“That was basically saying, ‘I’m not wasting my officers’ time with this nonsense.’

“Within 10 days, Randwick municipality proposed allowing daylight bathing, and they were the first to do so in NSW – not Manly, but Randwick.”

Other local councils soon followed suit.

Listen to the interview about William Gocher with Jim Haynes in the In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.