Sport as spectacle: Swimming in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

The development of sport during the Victorian and Edwardian period, from a predominantly rural activity pursued mainly by the landed gentry to a mass participation and spectator activity pursued in an urban setting by the middle and working classes, was closely linked to the changes in society resulting from industrialisation. This paper will look firstly at the growth of sport in general as a spectacle during the period, using the sports of horse racing, cricket, football and animal fighting as examples of the developments that took place and the scale of interest in spectator sport. Secondly it will focus on the popularity and the nature of the swimming spectacle. Swimming spectacles, or 'entertainments' as they were known, increased in number with the opening of the many new swimming baths that were built during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The fact that they took place in warm, relatively comfortable, surroundings and took place mainly on weekday evenings thus not clashing with the other weekend sporting spectacles added to the attraction. The diversity of the programmes, the fact that they appealed to both the male and female audience and that on occasions there were substantial bets on the outcome of the events made these entertainments very attractive for large numbers of spectators.