SEASIDE towns have always been in competition with each other. But back in 1923 Southend was desperately trying to outdo Bournemouth as a rival resort - and a move to improve the seafront’s bathing huts backfired spectacularly.

A party of Southend Council officials had visited the Dorset town in a bid to glean ideas on how Southend could up its tourism numbers.

When they returned they ordered the building of four bathing huts along Western Esplanade, like they had seen in Bournemouth, and proposed to let them out to bathers for a fee of £26 per year.

Not only did the eye-watering price go down badly with members of the council’s park’s committee, the design of the huts stirred up a storm too.

“They look like glorified dog kennels on hoop-la stalls,” ranted one senior councillor, while another criticised the rental price: “If that not fleecing the visitor, I don’t know what is,” he blasted.

A proposal was made for the huts to be totally redesigned, which they were and unfortunately we don’t have a photo of the ‘dog kennels’.

We do have an image of the replacement bathing huts and you can see workmen in the process of building them in the photograph on the right.

This wasn’t the first time Southend had faced bathing wars.

In 1912, the era of the bathing machine - a predecessor to the bathing hut - many residents and councillors had been left aghast when strict new bylaws regarding bathing were brought in.

There had been an outcry when the council banned people from swimming on the seafront without using a bathing machine. Rules were also brought in to ensure men and women were at least a certain number of metres away while bathing- heaven forbid they would catch a glimpse of each other doing the doggie paddle.

Reserved councillors also outlawed the increasingly popular custom of residents walking from their front doors to the beach in Mackintosh coats, then then whipping them off at the last minute before wading into the sea.

A small but powerful group of councillors considered this practice as indecent and so this was stopped.

However the ‘Mackintosh bathers’, as they were known, refused to take it lying down. They formed protest committees in a bid to get the rules changed.

Yet not everyone was in favour of more liberal regulations. A Southend Standard reader fired off a scathing letter to the editorial pages at around this time, complaining of having seen two men drying off after a swim: “Sir —I have had to discontinue my morning walks in company with my daughter along the front towards Leigh, owing to the indecent exposure of the bathers.

“This morning particularly I noticed two men who had just finished bathing drying themselves with the utmost disregard for decency.

“This took place at 7.35 within a few yards of the official notice -board which states that bathing is not permitted between 7am etc. This sort of thing is a disgrace to the town and would not be allowed in any other seaside resort.

“I have three daughter, who are often on the front during the holidays and I feel it very keenly that they cannot walk along the front in the early morning without the risk of being subjected to such offensive exhibition as I witnessed this morning.

Bathing machines were little huts on wheels, with entrances on either side. A swimmer would enter the bathing machine while it was parked on the beach, and change into their bathing suit.

Then the bathing machine would be dragged out into deeper water, either by horse or by a group of men. Once the machine had gone far enough into the water, the swimmer would emerge from the opposite door and dive into the ocean, far away from the prying eyes.

In Southend the main bathing hut operators were ‘Absalom bathing machines’ - named after Southend entrepreneur Henry Absalom who was a significant name in the Southend tourist industry back in the 1800s.

In 1908 his descendant Ernest Absalom was summoned to Southend court over failure to pay mooring rates for two floating bathing machines on the seafront.

Absalom complained that the fees were unfair as half the year during the colder weather the machines were out of action.

The machines were certainly sturdy. In 1936 heavy winds smashed a number of bathing machines on Southend seafront which had been there for 100 years - mainly Absalom contraptions.

As the Victorian era came to an end, bathing machines had their day and many were transformed into fixed bathing huts. This enabled swimmers to change into their swimwear in the beach hut and simply walk down to the sea - no Mackintosh required!

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