A Sunburnt Country: Sunbathing And ‘Peeping Toms’ At Bondi

By John Ruffels and Kimberly O’Sullivan on March 19, 2013 in Other

Photo: Waverley Library

The weather is a very powerful factor in our lives; so powerful, in fact, that it is often cited as a reason why many British and European people migrate to Australia. Would you rather spend your days in sunny Australia or rainy old UK? It’s a no brainer, really!

An intriguing Sydney Morning Herald description of people on Bondi Beach in 1904 had this to say:

“… regard the pale skin of the city worker, a skin rarely exposed to the fierce healthiness of sunburn. And further along the beach, in direct contrast to this etiolated pallor, a group of young men who belong to a swimming club show rich brown bodies carefully toasted by many Saturdays and Sundays of deliberate basking on frizzling rocks around that point to the north-east. One notices… a tan makes a human body seem less naked.”

One intriguing aspect to the new surf bathing craze of the early 20th century was that police started recording a startling new social phenomenon – the problem of beachside ‘Peeping Toms’. These creeps started frequenting the coast, looking for the chance to watch people getting changed out of their day clothes and into their bathing costumes.

At this time, men commonly stripped off on the beach itself, changing into their swimming costumes in the open air. This habit, which had gone on since the late 19th century, attracted many complaints to Waverley Council and furious letters of indignation to the local papers. Letter writers called for ‘innocent women’ picnicking in Bondi Park to be protected from the unseemly sight of naked men on the beach. The police did act and in 1907 Ernest Sinclair received a five pound fine (a very large amount of money at the time) for changing into his swimming costume on Bondi Beach.

Daylight bathing was illegal in Waverley and remained so until 1905. However, this unpopular law was widely flouted. In fact, the police had decided to turn a blind eye to this practice years earlier as long as swimmers didn’t offend public decency.

To stop men changing on the beach itself, new open air changing sheds were built by Waverley Council at Bondi. The police tried to strictly supervise the post-bathing behaviour of young people, moving them promptly and without digression to the new changing sheds so they could change into street clothes and be on their way. No loitering was allowed and surf bathers were not to ‘display’ themselves to the public in their wet clinging garments.

But the police underestimated the ingenuity of the ‘Peeping Toms’. The sand hills behind Bondi Beach had not yet been tamed and the Campbell Parade area was the site of constantly moving sand dunes. Due to the wind erosion on the uphill side of the changing sheds, sand would regularly bank up behind the structure. This provided a perfect spot for the voyeurs to sit with an uninterrupted view over the walls of the open air changing sheds and into the changing area itself. These changing sheds were popular with men sunbathing nude, but discreetly, inside. Needless to say, after the activities of the ‘Peeping Toms’ were unmasked, naked sunbathing inside the sheds was also banned.