Miss
Agnes Beckwith
Agnes Beckwith, the ‘pioneer of lady swimmers’ was a
supreme champion swimmer and natationist who not only promoted the art of
swimming but also pioneered the notion of swimming as a competitive sport for
females. She was but one member of a swimming dynasty that provided aquatic
entertainments in a variety of venues throughout the second half of the
nineteenth-century. The Patriarch, Professor of swimming, Frederick Edward
Beckwith, had been a successful speed swimmer as a young man and had moved to
London in the early 1840s to seek his fortune as an entertainments promoter and
natationist. [1] It
is hardly surprising that given the support and protection afforded by the
Beckwith Family that Agnes was able to develop her obvious natural abilities as
a swimmer within the flourishing new leisure world of the late-Victorian
period. Agnes had been introduced into the family business at an early age; in
1873 she had accompanied her father and one of her older brothers, Charles, to
perform at the opening of the free open-air swimming baths in Derby. Local MP,
Mr Michael Thomas Bass had presented the town of Derby with both the land and
the baths; he was said to have ‘taken an interest in the little girl’ and
proceeded to make a collection for Agnes raising two guineas for her
performance.[2]
In August, 1874 Professor Beckwith
was pushing back the barriers to female involvement by hiring Lambeth Baths for
‘two monster Swimming Fetes, for Ladies as well as Gentlemen’.[3]
The Professor had arranged for ‘five of the greatest lady swimmers in England’
to perform/race for £30 in prize money. The public were assured of the utmost
probity in that the ladies were to wear ‘University Costume’. The price of
admission was set at either one- or two-shillings as no expense had been spared
to make Lambeth Baths ‘suitable for these great events.’[4]
There was clearly a conscious effort being made to ensure that such events were
seen to be ‘respectable’ with the insistence on specific costumes being worn
and the setting of an entrance fee that would permit only ‘gentlefolk’ of
either gender to witness the entertainment.
In 1875 Professor Beckwith had introduced
his 14 year old daughter to the general public when Agnes gave an
exhibition of long-distance swimming in the River
Thames. This publicity stunt guaranteed his protégée celebrity status from this
point on in her professional career and certainly acted as a focus when
publicising the family’s aquatic entertainments for the rest of the
nineteenth-century. Agnes was described as a ‘professional swimmer’ at the age
of fourteen by the New York Times who
reported her solo effort of swimming from London Bridge to Greenwich, a
distance of five miles.[5]
The added interest to this episode was that some days later Miss Emily Parker
succeeded in swimming from London Bridge to Blackwall, a distance of seven
miles. Such competitions typified this age of professional ‘swimming
challenges’ and was significant because the challengers were such young female
professional swimmers.[6] As with Agnes, Emily also came from a famous
swimming family who were attempting to profit from long-distance swimming
challenges, ‘the mania of the hour’. The Graphic
newspaper reported both exhibitions of long-distance swimming as admirable
as they exemplified the young ladies endurance and skill but caustically added,
‘we hardly like young ladies indulging in this public exhibition of their
natatory abilities.’[7]
However, this was not a universal view held by the media as The Penny Illustrated Paper reported
that the events:
… should make swimming popular enough among the
girls. Clad in such tasteful costumes de
bain [bath] as these young lassies, both under fifteen years of age, wore
during their river swims, young ladies ought to be able to enjoy bathing at the
seaside far more than they do in the ugly gowns custom makes them wear.[8]
In 1876
there was speculation that Agnes would attempt to swim the English Channel but
this only served to keep her name in the public spotlight. Her efforts were now
attracting a mixed response from the media:
Ladies who would learn to swim, take lessons of
Miss Beckwith! Miss Agnes, now you have given such ample proofs that you are a
duck of a girl, stick to your proper vocation – that of teaching your sex to
swim.[9]
What newspaper commentators on such
exhibitions failed to appreciate was that Agnes was a professional swimmer who
had a living to make by plying her trade in all forms of natation open to her.
Her gender and professional standing would not be allowed to interfere in her
ability to entertain the general public and to be paid an income commensurate
with such sporting activities. In 1878 Agnes continued her mastery of the River
Thames by swimming twenty-miles of its length from Westminster Bridge to the
Pigeons at Richmond and back with the tide to Mortlake. The reporter from The Penny Illustrated Paper was now
referring to the ‘sweet seventeen’ year-old Miss Beckwith as the ‘Lambeth
naiad’ who ‘swims twenty miles with wondrous ease in the Thames.’[10]
Undoubtedly such exploits served to popularise ‘the art of swimming’ amongst
ladies in general and gradually enable ladies-only sessions in public baths to
be common place in the 1890s. But, for now, female swimmers had to satisfy
themselves with access to ladies-only sessions in a minority of baths who had
acknowledged the demand from a significant minority of female natationists.
[1] See David Day, The ‘Beckwith Frogs’, History Workshop
Journal, Issue 71, February 25, 2011.
[2] The Derby Mercury, Opening of the Free Public Baths, Derby, Wednesday, June 18, 1873.
[4]
Ibid.
[5] New York Times, A Lady’s Seven Miles’ Swim, September
20, 1875, 5
[6] See Christopher Love, ‘Social
Class and the Swimming World: Amateurs and Professionals’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 24, No.5, 2007,
603-619
[7] The Graphic, Swimming, Saturday, September 11, 1875
[8] The Penny Illustrated Paper, The Swimming Feats of Miss Beckwith and Miss
Parker, Saturday, September 11, 1875, 174.
[9] The Penny Illustrated Paper, Followers of Captain Webb, Saturday,
July 08, 1876, 23.
[10]
The Penny Illustrated Paper, Saturday, July 27, 1878, 61.
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