Quanza Pools
1906

The Quanza Pools, named after the Quanza which was wrecked near that spot in 1872, was constructed as a result of an initial accident. The Town Engineer was experimenting with explosives and blasted a great hole in the rocks along the Esplanade. Water immediately rushed in and the resulting pool became a popular place for women and children. As a

See also: More about this subject Insolvent's Hole Orient Beach The first bathing pool Beach Hotel Victorian bathing habits

consequence, the municipality decided to build a proper pool there. In fact, two pools were built: one for men and one for women and children. The protests that ensued, however, saw the Council change its mind: sexually mixed bathing was allowed in the larger pool while the smaller one remained the domain of the women and children.

Dr Keith Tankard

Quanza Pools
1906

Plans were drawn up in 1905 to create a new bathing pool near the wreck of the Quanza, between Insolvent's Hole and Orient Beach. Initially the Town Engineer simply blasted a bathing place out of the rocks but the Council was wary of undertaking any further expense, first because the shore-line was still under the authority of the Harbour Board and, second, because councillors were afraid of saddling the town with "another white elephant" like the earlier pool near the Beach Hotel. The roughly hewn version proved so popular, however, that the Council immediately plucked up the courage to build a proper swimming pool on the same spot.

The Quanza Pool was divided into two sections and bathing was meant to be restricted to women and children but the idea proved to be controversial and there was concerted pressure to open the pool to everyone. The "medley of mixed-bathers" on the beach, a correspondent wrote, indicated how "extremely popular" unrestricted bathing was amongst both sexes of all ages but the concept of men and women mixing in the close confines of the pool horrified others.

Permitting mixing "at a large watering-place" was one thing, a correspondent wrote, yet to allow it in the pool was definitely beyond the pale. Where a long stretch of sandy beach was available, he said, "and where a large number of persons engage in the process, who . . . neither know nor care about one another, is a very different thing to permitting it in a restricted pool where all are bound to remain close to one another the whole time . . . Under such circumstances it is simply disgusting."

Councillor Frederick Gregg attempted a compromise by moving in Council that the men be given the larger pool while women and children be permitted to use the adjacent section. Councillor Albert Maytham objected that the pools were too close together to allow even that because, he said, there was "a great objection" to mixed bathing and there would be an "outcry in the town" if they threw open the bathing in that way.

Other councillors argued that the opposite was true and that East London, like "almost every modern seaside resort" was undergoing a change of attitudes and that mixed bathing was fast becoming an

See also: Insolvent's Hole Orient Beach The first bathing pool Beach Hotel Victorian bathing habits

established fact. The latter argument eventually won the day and the Council resolved to open the main pool to everyone, while offering the women and children the privacy of the small pool. They did, however, demand that all bathers don bathing costumes, something which few men were up doing.

Dr Keith Tankard