Harrow School: Sports--Swimming


Figure 1.--This drawing was published in the 'The Graphic'. This was a popular British illustrated Weekly newspaper. This drawing was in the July 17, 1886. The drawing was captioned, 'The swimming races at Harrow'. We do not know the context of this drawing. The drawing fills up the whole page. 'The Graphic' commonly carried items about sport activities.

Harrow School now has a modern 25-meter swimming pool. We are not sure when swimming was added to the sports program at Harrow. Most people did not know how to swim until the 19th century. Water and bathuing wasn't considered healthy. Of course in Britain with the cold water this is somewhastt understandable, but this was a general attitude throughout WEurope. This did not begin to change until the late-18th century. This included Royal Navy sailors. We know swimming was being taught at public schools by the 19th century. This included Harrow. Boys at Harrow and rgw think the other public schools used to swim nude in their outdoor and indoor pools. This was apparently common at British schools. At Harrow this continued into the 1980s. At that time some housemaster’s wife complained that the housemaster’s wives and daughters were prohibited from using the pools. As a result the policy was changed.







HBC






Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Eton pages:
[Return to the Main Harrow School page]
[Return to the Main individual school page]
[Return to the Main Eton suit school uniform page]
[Classic Eton suits] [Eton collar] [Eton kilts] [Eton choir costumes] [American Eton suits]



Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [Essays] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]



Created: 8:15 PM 9/2/2010
Last updated: 8:15 PM 9/2/2010