The popularity of sea bathing began in about 1730. In the early days, it
was a quick total submersion in the water and was intended as a medical
treatment rather than a pleasant experience.
The bather took off all his or her
clothes in the bathing machine and was then plunged into the sea by
attendants.
Margate's enhancement to the
Bathing machine came in around 1750, when Benjamin Beale, a Margate glove and
breeches maker, invented a canvas hood which could be pulled down to protect
the naked sea-bather from prying eyes.
The Royal Sea Bathing Hospital was opened
in 1791, when it was believed that sea bathing and sea air were the best cures
for tuberculosis.
Patients in their beds
would be pushed into the fresh air and the hospital had a sea-water reservoir
so that patients could be bathed in sea water.
Soon sea bathing became more of a pleasurable thing to do.
Margate had medicinal baths by 1890; as
‘taking salt waters’ became a well known, healthy, alternative to the spa - and
was known as a ‘resort’ by 1800.
The
promenade at Margate was designed for ladies and gentlemen to stroll along
showing off their fine clothes and conspicuous wealth.
The bathers of the early years entered
their machines by stairs from the backs of the bathing houses situated on the
West side at the bottom of the High Street.
These buildings, perched
precariously on timber piles on the cliff face, before the building of Marine
Drive, were known as Hazardous Row due to the regular damage they suffered from
storms.
The bathing machines in use at Margate were
described in 1805 as "four-wheeled
carriages, covered with canvas, and having at one end of them an umbrella of
the same materials which is let down to the surface of the water, so that the
bather descending from the machine by a few steps is concealed from the public
view, whereby the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the
sea with the strictest delicacy."
The Kentish
Gazette notes in 1797 that “By some neglect on the driver, a bathing machine in which
were two ladies, got afloat and it being the ebb of the tide, was drifting fast
to sea. Their cries attracted the attention of three gentlemen, who were
amusing themselves in swimming.
They got into a boat, and pushed off to the
succour of the afflicted fair ones, to whom they presented themselves literally
in puris naturalibus.
Life is sweet and the damsels were happy to be rowed to
shore without once daring to look at their brave deliverers.”
The Dunn Family, from Thomas, grandfatherof ‘the SS Atlantic’ Thomas and his wife Annie Perkins (Edward’s sister) lived
from about 1830 at Parade House, a prestigious corner plot facing the sea, and
next to the early site of sea bathing, later Ruby Lounge Public House.
Her brother, Edward Austin Perkins, was later
to be a ‘bathing Machine Proprietor’ there.
 |
| Edward Austin Perkins |
Margate had been a major seaside resort for many years.
During the early 1800s Margate
became the first seaside resort in which donkey rides became a popular
amusement.
The ‘holiday and leisure’
industry in Margate was a good way for an entrepreneur to work – particularly
one with a new (and very popular) idea.
Though Perkins was by no means the first
person to place bathing machines on the sands (the pamphlet ‘An excursion to Margate: in the month of
June, 1786’ notes (chapter X) ‘the sands had now been
crouded with machines’) or to provide a ‘Perkins jetty’ for bathers, Edward
Perkins was the first to place chairs on Marine Sands in 1880.
The privilege cost him £100 – an enormous
sum, now equivalent to high five figures.
His wife is shown in both the 1893 and 1899/1900 Directories as: “Mrs Perkins, Fancy Repository”.
Edward is Owner of a business which has
bathing machines
(a late nineteenth century postcard shows the Perkins slipway
leading to the Perkins machines) but, as you can see from another 1904 card,
the beach is full of deckchairs emblazoned with the name Perkins. The ‘Perkins slipway’ is in the background
and there is a 1910 picture of a ‘Perkins Diving Board’ with a couple of dozen
bathers on the Margate Local History website.
Edward’s youngest child, Walter James
Perkins was also in Margate, Kent with his family. (Walter James was, of course, the name of
Annie’s brother, and also Thomas and Annie Dunn’s first born in Liverpool and his son in Margate).
During
the summer months Walter Perkins would regularly stay away from school and help
his father by collecting a penny from holiday makers for use of the Perkins
deckchairs and later assisted him in operating the Perkins bathing machines on
Marine Terrace sands. (The corporation
subsequently took over both operations).
Walter was elected Mayor of Margate in 1947
and served until 1949.
He died on 26
June 1959 in a Margate nursing home.
Known as ‘father’ of the Council, he was an honorary freeman of the
borough.
Thanks Ray !
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