History of Swimming - Pre-Olympic Era To 1897

Pre-Olympic Era To 1897

In 1804, the lifebelt was invented by W.H. Mallison, the device being known at that time as the "Seaman’s Friend". However, the lifebelts took up valuable space on ships, and the United States Navy was worried about the devices being used by sailors to desert.

A journal mentions "swimming skates" in France, which may be an early version of a surfboard.

One watershed event was a swimming competition in 1844 in London. While the British raced using breaststroke, the Native Americans swam a variant of the front crawl, which had been used by people in the Americas, West Africa and some Pacific islands for generations, but was not known to the British. As the front crawl is much faster than the breaststroke, the Natives easily beat the British: Flying Gull won the medal, swimming the 150 feet (46 m) in 30 seconds, and second place went to another American named Tobacco. Their stroke was described as making a motion with the arms "like a windmill" and kicking the legs up and down. As this produced considerable splashing, it was considered barbaric and "un-European" to the British gentlemen, who preferred to keep their heads above water. Subsequently, the British continued to swim only breaststroke until 1873.

From 1847, Nancy Edberg was active as the first woman instructor in swimming in Stockholm, making swimming lessons accessible for both genders: she later also introduced swimming lessons for women in Denmark and Norway; her public swimming exhibitions from 1856 with her students were likely among the first public exhibitions of women swimming in Europe

An Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain was organized in 1880 with more than 300 members. The main swimming styles were the breaststroke and the recently developed side stroke. In the sidestroke, the swimmer lies on one side. Initially, the arms were brought forward under water, but this was soon modified to bring the arm forward over water to reduce resistance and to improve the speed, resulting in an overarm sidestroke. The legs were squeezed together in a scissor style. In 1895, J. H. Thayers of England swam 100 yards (91 m) in a record-breaking 1:02.50 using a sidestroke.

Sometime between 1870 and 1890 (the date is most often given as 1873), John Arthur Trudgen reintroduced the front crawl to England, having learned the stroke from Native Americans during a trip to South America. His stroke, a variant of the front crawl, came to be called the Trudgen or Trudgeon. The arms were brought forward, alternating, while the body rolled from side to side. The kick was a scissors kick such as that familiarly used in breaststroke, with one kick for two arm strokes, although it is believed that the Native Americans had indeed used a flutter kick. Front crawl variants used different ratios of scissor kicks to arm strokes, or alternated with a flutter (up-and-down) kick. The speed of the new stroke was demonstrated by F.V.C. Lane in 1901, swimming 100 yards (91 m) in 1:00.0, an improvement of about ten seconds compared to the breaststroke record. This style is the first European version of the front crawl, the fastest swimming style known today. Due to its speed the Trudgen became very quickly popular around the world, despite all the ungentlemanlike splashing.

Captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel (between England and France), in 1875. He used breaststroke, swimming 21.26 miles (34.21 km) in 21 hours and 45 minutes. No other man or woman swam the channel for the next 31 years. He died in 1882 while attempting to swim the Niagara Falls. The first European amateur swimming competitions were in 1889 in Vienna.

In 1879, King Ludwig II of Bavaria built a swimming pool in Linderhof castle.