What is the history of sea bathing?
Enoch Barrows
2025-05-25 04:12:50
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Sea bathing as a cure of ailments dates back at least to the 17th century in England. Dr. Russell from Lewes is famous for popularizing taking the waters of the sea (and even drinking seawater) as a cure at Brighton in the mid 1700s. He prescribed sea bathing as a treatment for patients, and it exploded in popularity. Early sea-bathers went straight into the water, and the first use of a bathing machine happened around 1750. At first, the sexes were mixed, but later the beaches designated separate areas from men and women—a separation that would last all the way through the early 20th century. A bathing machine was a cart often pulled by a horse into the sea. Bathers and dippers were in business from the late 1700s through the mid-1800s. Taking the waters of the sea was not the only way to use water to treat ailments. Another famous figure in Brighton who popularized “vapour baths” was Sake Deem Mohamad—also known as “Dr. Brighton.”
Augustus Ondricka
2025-05-16 20:36:11
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Bathing has been prescribed as a treatment in one form or another since at least the time of Ancient Greece. From the 16th century what had at one time been holy sites of pilgrimage, many associated with healing, were adapted by Protestant reformers to fit their new model of faith. The growth in the 17th and 18th centuries of spa towns, particularly in Protestant Germany and England, stem in part from these roots. Conditions which were believed to be treatable by bathing included: nightmares, leprosy, plague, rickets, inflammation of the eyes, 'female complaints', hysteria, gout, constipation, blows to the head, numbness, bronchitis, cancer, and flatulence. The type of bathing prescribed depended on the nature of the condition and how advanced it was. It could take the form of: full body bathing, head bathing, leg bathing, or feet bathing. It could also be either fresh water bathing or sea water bathing. Emphasis on bathing, of both the sea and spa varieties, continued throughout the Victorian era and into the 20th century, although Britain's spas decreased in popularity as people began in large numbers to visit spas overseas.
Juliet Upton
2025-05-04 15:01:51
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The first mention of bathing machines is in 1721 when a Nicholas Blundell mentions “a Conveniency for Bathing in the Sea.” Scarborough was in the vanguard of the new craze for sea bathing, helped by the fact that its original spa was actually on the beach. In 1735 “Conveniencies” were being provided at Scarborough for ladies. The machines in the sea are of two types – one looks like a modern garden shed on wheels, rectangular with a pitched roof. The other is square with a pyramidal roof. None of them have the “modesty hood” or “tilt” invented in 1753 by Benjamin Beale, a Quaker from Margate.
Ladies and gentlemen in elegant clothes have been driven down to the beach in their carriages and would have had a perfect view of the bathers, all of whom would have been naked. Sack-like garments for ladies soon appeared but it was considered effeminate for men to wear anything until well into the 19th century.
Emmy Adams
2025-05-04 14:39:50
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While Bath and other interior Spa towns remained popular places for Regency vacationers and those seeking restorative waters alike, by the 1790’s a new fad had sprung up: Sea-bathing. Prescribed by doctors as early as 1750, things really took off when George III chose to recuperate in Weymouth in 1789, giving this treatment the Royal stamp of approval. The most obvious difference in this Regency form of exercise which sets it apart from its modern-day equivalent is the conditions under which it was prescribed. While one would suppose the summer months to be the most popular in which to visit, view and even bathe in the ocean, doctors of the time often prescribed immersion in the coldest water available- records of the Austen family’s visits range from September to February and nearly every month in between. Sea-bathing was merely an extension of the indoor spa bathing practised at the various bath houses and hot springs located around England. Austen, herself, went bathing on several occasions during a visit to Lyme in September 1804. In Persuasion, Mary Musgrove goes bathing during their extended stay in Lyme in November. The Bathing Machine, invented in the early 1700s by Benjamin Beale, was a wooden hut built on wheels into which a lady could ascend. By the 1890s, bathing machines became stationary and were only used as changing rooms, rather than facilitators for getting into the sea.
Felton Cremin
2025-05-04 10:33:56
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Emma, Lady Hamilton, came all the way from London in 1784 to bathe at the resort in search of a remedy for a skin complaint. It is believed she lodged privately at Dover Cottage. At the time of her visit she was known as Emma Hart, her name later changing upon her marriage in 1791 to Sir William Hamilton, our ambassador to the kingdom of Naples. Unfortunately Parkgate’s pre-eminence as a seaside resort was short-lived. It began to decline in the middle of the 19th century, when New Brighton overtook it as a popular visitor destination. In 1923, however, new open air baths were constructed on the North Parade, beyond the Boathouse, for Mostyn House School. They were also made available to the public and became very popular with visitors from a wide area, who arrived at Parkgate in great numbers by car and by train. A second, smaller pool was added in 1930. These baths made use of the available sea water but, alas, they too fell into disuse as a result of the encroaching marsh stemming the supply.
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