Gentle readers: I am on vacation at the shore. The hot weather has cooled and the crowded beaches are empty, except for a few bathers and the shore birds. Yet, somehow my Internet connection is spotty and my ability to add images is nil. So, here is a link to an article I wrote for Suite 101 over a year ago about Martha Gunn and John Smoaker Miles, famous sea dippers who helped men and women into the sea waters at Brighton.
Martha Gunn, dipper
In 1750, Dr Richard Russell wrote a dissertation advising his patients with glandular conditions to swim in the ocean and drink the iodine-rich sea water. The Prince of Wales, who first visited Brighton in 1783, began taking the sea cure for his swollen glands on his second and third visits. Brighton was a mere 6 hours by stagecoach from London, and where the prince went, the fashionable crowd followed. The town quickly became the seaside resort of choice for people seeking a pleasant diversion, or a cure for gout and other illnesses caused by rich food and lack of exercise, and a thriving industry devoted to bathing soon developed.
Bathers were drawn into the ocean inside bathing machines constructed of wood. Men and women were required to enter the water at specified times in different sections of the beach. The women used the beaches on the east side of town near the Brighton aquarium, while the men were diverted to the west end beaches. This custom ensured that the sexes could not view each other in revealing bathing costumes, or while swimming in the nude, a practice that the men followed often and the women more infrequently
Read more at: Sea Bathing in Georgian Brighton: Martha Gunn and John ‘Smoaker’ Miles
Other posts on this topic:
Martha Gunn, Brighton’s Queen of the Dippers|
Jane Austen's World 
I love this post! it’s true about the sea! Love England!!!!
Downton Abbey Part 2 starts on Sunday night so the papers are full of it; the Guardian offers: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/sep/13/downton-abbey-class-and-distinction?INTCMP=SRCH The BBC are offering Spooks as an alternative so the G has this quiz:
‘Spooks vs Downton – which are you?
1 A diplomat has died in a young lady’s bed in mysterious circumstances. Do you (a) sob into your corset/spread malicious rumours about her virtue, or (b) tell your officer to get herself dressed, tidy up, and disappear?
2 The telephone rings. Do you (a) leap back, aghast, and eye it with great suspicion, or (b) immediately start triangulating its exact location?
3 There appears to be a snuffbox missing. Do you (a) laugh wickedly at your masterplan to frame the valet, or (b) put the Grid on lockdown and prepare the interrogation room?
4 There’s something you’ve been keeping from your colleagues. Is it (a) you once dared to be part of a song and dance act, or (b) You killed your friend, assumed his identity and have been living a lie for 15 years?
5 What are your plans for this weekend? (a) What is a … weekend? (b) What’s a weekend?
The answers
Mostly (a)s This newspaper has probably been ironed to perfection before you began reading – you are definitely Downton.
Mostly (b)s Burn this after reading. Spooks fans know the drill.’
Very interesting – I never thought that a “sea dipper” could be a job. How things have changed over the centuries with beach-goers!
I’m quite sure I would quickly drown in one of those ladies’ bathing costumes! Of course, I’m more interested in having a seaside picnic (It’s always food with me!) than in “bathing” in the ocean. Enjoy your holiday at the shore, Vic!
your comment about men bathing in the nude and not women made me consider. Probably it is because women have always been more self concious about their bodies. sounds lovely to bathe in the ocean in the nude. wish i felt i could do so. too modest or is it self conscious?
It’s interesting how society rule about proprietary has changed. Nowadays the bikini gets smaller and smaller.
Every Savage Can Reproduce
Well done for writing another post that’s well produced. Well done!