Our Love of Water - a social history

Water and its Historic Social

Connections with Holidaying

By Jacqui Barnsley
©Copyright 

Australian Beach Pattern

1940, Charles Meere

Water, the element of life; universally revered for its sacredness, beauty, power, necessity and versatility. In many of its forms, water is a global magnet for tourists, holiday-makers, recreationalists, leisure seekers, artists, spiritualists and sportspersons, to name a few. This essay examines the human fascination with water in regards to tourism and recreational use, exploring both the origin of the ‘holiday’ and specifically its historical connection with water. The social history is a 2050-year epic tale of beliefs, values, trends, delight, danger and manipulation. While the reasons why holidaymakers have been attracted to areas of water may have evolved, the attraction itself has continued to grow, changing the very way we live, work and play.

We cannot stray far from water. On a basic level we rely on water to drink, grow food and wash - it is essential to our survival. The necessity and usefulness of water has led to almost every populated area on the planet establishing itself close to a body of water (Waterstone, 1992). If possible, when there is no natural water source the land is manipulated to produce one; dams, canals, estuaries, pools, and man-made lakes dot the landscape that lacks a river, stream, spring, natural lake or ocean. Populated areas without a clean water source generally experience economical and health poverty (Corvalan, Hales & McMichael, 2005). Not surprisingly, water has become not only a symbol of status – at least in terms of real estate - but a major source of recreational activity, lifestyle, social expression and cultural identity (White, 2005).

There is evidence that people have always travelled, and while historically travel was primarily for the purposes of trade, warfare and exploration (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001, p. xxii), travel for pleasure or cultural education has ancient beginnings, particularly in Greece and Rome (Faulkner, et al., 2001). Water has long been associated with tourism and holidaying (Jennings, 2007). Today, the presence of water is one of the biggest drawcards when choosing a holiday destination (Hall & Page, 2006). Ocean and coastal tourism particularly is recognised as ‘one of the fastest growing areas of contemporary tourism’ (Hall & Page, 2006, p. 291). Water-bodies provide for a diverse range of activities, catering to a diverse range of holiday requirements; relaxation, adventure, beauty, sport or nature.

The beginnings of our water/holiday relationship can be traced to the early Roman civilisation, around the first century, with the popularity of both the therapeutic spa and the seaside holiday (Jennings, 2007). The Romans were advocates for the therapeutic properties of water and established the practice of ‘taking the waters’, creating communal baths and spas where the spiritual and physical benefits of water could be regularly consumed (Jennings, 2007).

The ancient Romans and Greeks also enjoyed recreational fishing, swimming, promenading by the beach or lake, yachting, row boating and soaking in the natural sulphur hot springs. In response, the seaside, canals, rivers and lakes saw environmental and commercial development comparable to that of the modern world (Feifer, 1986).

The Romans were the first to habit the holiday home, with many upper-class citizens owning a second house by the sea to escape the summer heat (Jennings, 2007). The Bay of Naples, in what is now southern Italy, with its natural beauty, thermal springs, climate, and ‘Old World’ Greek culture, had vacation villas as early as 200 BC (Feifer, 1986) and by the third century had ‘sprouted a line of watering places which became the most fashionable in the Roman world’ (Casson cited in Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001, p. xxiii). Riviera towns such as Puteoli and Baiae were also popular holiday destinations complete with boarding houses, dockyards, gladiator arenas, holiday villas and taverns, however Baiae with its reputation for pleasures of the more impure and immoral kind, attracted singles and couples rather than families (Feifer, 1986).

The fall of the Roman Empire from 476 AD saw the decay of the road systems, roadside inns and tourist accommodation, and subsequently a decline in travel, lasting several hundred years until Middle Age Europe once again saw wealth and political stability, and the return of the traveller (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001). Travel during this time, however, was primarily religious pilgrimage until the seventeenth century creation of the Grand Tour (Faulkner et al., 2001). Middle Age pilgrims did embark on organised cruises of the Nile, Tiber and Jordan Rivers, and the Venetian canals, visiting holy landmarks complete with a thriving accommodation and souvenir industry (Feifer, 1986). Later, the Grand Tour - from which the term ‘tourism’ finds its origins - began as the trend for young men from wealthy British families to embark on an extended journey – usually throughout Europe - in search of experiences and places to increase their knowledge of art, language, culture and politics (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001).

The seventeenth century also saw the re-emergence of the mineral hot springs, spas and sea baths originally used by the Romans. Reputed to have numerous health-giving properties, places such as Bath and Buxton in Britain, Baden in Switzerland, Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden in Germany, and Vichy in France became fashionable attractions (Faulkner, et al., 2001). The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century – resulting in economic stability, more leisure time, and the introduction of the steam engine – created a boom in travel, this time extending to working class who embarked on tours to the spa and coastal towns previously exclusive to the upper classes (Faulkner et al., 2001; Jennings, 2007). The Industrial Revolution had changed the allocation of work and leisure from a class division to a seasonal one (White, 2005).

When Joseph Banks embarked on his ultimate Grand Tour with Captain Cook in 1768, the English were just beginning to take ‘holidays’; the word having begun to lose its ‘religious meaning of “holy days” set aside by the church for religious observance, and beginning to refer to periods of time away from home for the purposes of pleasure’ (White, 2005, p. 2). Holidays were based on the idea of leaving home and work in search of knowledge, adventure, difference, leisure and pleasure (Lofgren, 2002). According to Hall and Page (2006, p. 293), ‘what the period 1750 – 1840 witnessed was a fundamental reassessment of the ways in which leisure time and places were used with the evolution of the seaside holiday’.

With the working classes inundating the spa towns (Jennings, 2007), ‘burgeoning seaside resorts emerged in the mid-eighteenth century’ (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001, p. 113) catering for the wealthy, including royalty, amidst further claims from the medical profession that bathing in and drinking of sea water offered numerous health benefits. Bathing was regarded as moral as it was medicinal and sometimes even miraculous (Inglis, 2000). In Britain and France, resorts with bathing machines - wooden boxed carts that were rolled into the sea allowing people to wade into the ocean without violating Victorian modesty - such as Dieppe, Weymouth, Brighton and Scarborough, grew rapidly and soon challenged the status of Bath (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001).

The virtues of the ocean were clarified gracefully by eighteenth century Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett, an avid sea bather, who declared that;

the sea, in virtue of its tonic chill and the bracing smack of the waves restored lost energy, cured feebleness of both body and will, daunted tumescence in particular and sexual desire in general while also making men manlier and brought discipline and grip to those of debauched life (Inglis, 2000, p. 39).

These spa and seaside resorts aiming to offer visitors other activities, facilitated the development of seaside gardens, aviaries, jetties, pier promenades, open-air entertainment, amusement fairs and theme parks, and by the late nineteenth century, casinos, such as those on the French Riviera (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001).

The lure of the sea sinks deep into the European past. Apart from the perceived health benefits, the seaside provided an escape for the genteel classes; a place where spontaneous abandonment could replace chaste social propriety, where you could eat without table manners, don less restrictive attire, express emotion, perhaps even touch a stranger under the waves, accidently of course (Inglis, 2000). It was also a place of adventure, mystery, romance and art. As Inglis (2000, p. 39) states so eloquently, ‘the sea swept plenty of classical poetry in on the tide’. It was (and is) the subject of poetry, novels and landscape paintings; epic tales and legends of sea gods and goddesses, monsters from the deep, sirens, mermaids, wraiths, pirates and phantom ships.

With its restorative and relaxation properties, element of mystery and danger, social rituals and culture, the ocean and seaside continued to grow in the hearts of coastal dwellers and holiday makers. The European passion spread to Australia with colonisation, forming the beginnings of a culture synonymous with the beach and water. As White points out, ‘modern Australia was the result of a rich man’s holiday’ (White, 2005, p. 1), when Joseph Banks chose to join Cook’s tour of the Pacific, resulting in the exploration of the east coast of Australia, and later the first convict settlement in Botany Bay (White, 2005).

The first whites [in Australia] were usually unable to swim, and found no joy in the Australian beaches, but they quickly learned from their Aboriginal predecessors, and in the twentieth century the beach became one of the major emblems of Australian culture and certainly one of the most important recreational sites (Harvey, Perkins & Cushman, 1998, p. 36).

The warm climate and beautiful beaches made sea-bathing popular among Australian settlers, however despite women’s swimming costumes covering neck to knee they were seen as indecent. Religious censure saw public swimming banned during daylight hours between 1833 and 1902 ‘to protect social and moral values’ (Jennings, 2007, p. 3) limiting the seaside to ‘promenading, picnicking and paddling’ until the introduction of bathing machines allowed for socially acceptable bathing (Jennings, 2007, p. 3).

In Australia the holiday is deeply connected with water, its unique qualities appealing to a range of holiday makers whether they seek nature and purity, luxury and sensuality, adventure and abandonment or a combination of these (Harvey, Perkins & Cushman, 1998). While Australians love to use water in all its forms for a vast range of recreational and leisure activities, the country is surrounded by some of the world’s best beaches, and three quarters of the Australian population live within forty kilometres of the coast (Harvey et al., 1998). The close proximity making the coast a way of life in Australia as opposed to a travel destination away from normal life, as was the often the case in England and other parts of Europe (Jennings, 2007).

The beach provides a setting that Harvey, Perkins and Cushman (1998, p. 262) refers to as a ‘middle landscape’; a combination of natural and man-made environments; where the latter has manipulated the former ‘to provide consumer habitats that are very popular with tourists and local people alike’. Water ‘brings into play the pleasurable differences between sea and land, wet and dry, nature and culture; It is a place where social protocols are relaxed’ (Harvey et al., 1998, p. 262).

White (2005, p. xv) describes the phenomena of the stereotypical Australian beach holiday as ‘casual, democratic, sociable, cheap and laid back’. ‘Sun, sea and sand tourism’ (Jennings, 2007, p. 3) is connected to the dream of sunshine, childish enjoyment, abandonment, and happiness (Inglis, 2000). Harvey, Perkins and Cushman (1998, p. 263) says ‘we go to the beach, perhaps, in search of happy relationships with ourselves and nature’; it revives memories of childhood, happy days in the sun, and involves a number of activities from the structured to ‘pointless productivity like building sandcastles or catching fish we could buy’ (Inglis, 2000, p. 4).

While Europeans, Americans and Australians have historically treasured their beach holidays, the abundance of rivers, lakes, creeks, springs, waterfalls, river gorges, billabongs and estuaries have also been the setting for growing recreational activities and travel destinations, particularly for those tourists wishing to avoid the growing seaside crowds (Hall & Page, 2006). The issues of degradation and development of coastal and inland waters by the growing tourism industry has led to the creation of eco-tourism as a way of reducing the ‘tourist footprint’, sustaining the ecosystem and allowing the environmentally conscious traveller to enjoy the nature holiday while maintaining a clear conscience (Middleton, 1998).

Coastal tourism embraces the full range of tourism, leisure and recreationally orientated activities that take place in the coastal zone and offshore coastal waters. These include coastal tourism development such as accommodation, restaurants, food industry and second-homes and the infrastructure supporting coastal developments for example retail businesses, marinas and activity suppliers (Hall & Page, 2006, p. 292). Sailing and boating for pleasure and sport has led to the invention of water skiing, parasailing, wildlife watching cruises, deep sea fishing and scuba diving while those on the beach enjoy sand play, collecting shells, walking, swimming, snorkelling, fishing, sun- bathing and sporting competitions.

From the 1950’s the surfing craze, imported from Hawaii, has become a complete cultural, recreational and professional industry of its own, particularly in Australasia and North America where good surfing beaches are found (Harvey, Perkins & Cushman, 1998). ‘The beach has become a conspicuous signpost against which western culture has registered its economic, aesthetic, sexual, religious and even technological milestones’ (Lencek & Bosker cited in Hall & Page, 2006, p. 293).

Water side developments have continued to grow and prosper worldwide as humans manipulate the natural coastline or water side to capitalise on its potential to attract people. Walk and cycle-ways, marinas, jetties, taverns, restaurants, cafes, accommodation, residential dwellings, retail outlets, fun parks and picnic areas line the edges of water ways throughout the industrial world. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, advancements in transportation have shaped the market for commercial tourism, globalizing the world and creating a mass industry in recreational travel, holiday destinations and activities (Faulkner, Moscardo & Laws, 2001).

While new forms of tourism and attractions are constantly developed to satisfy the modern tourist’s appetite for new sights and experiences (Lofgren, 2002, p. 8), water and water based holidays are eternal. Prior to the twentieth century, participation in travel was limited by gender, class, age, and cultural background (Jennings, 2007). Contemporary tourism is inclusive of all people - although socio-economic status still very much controls the level of participation – and while these different sub-groups may engage in recreation and holidays differently, water-based destinations have the versatility to cater for all peoples, budgets, and purposes.

In conclusion, ‘the skills of vacationing have a long history, and into each new vacationscape we bring expectations and anticipations as well as stable routines and habits’ (Lofgren, 2002, p. 5). The concept of nature and water as good for you has deep historical roots (Inglis, 2000) and while experiencing many popularity and accessibility ups and downs throughout the story of classical and modern tourism, water as a place of leisure has remained part of our human disposition. The future of water-based tourism has many challenges to overcome if it is to sustain the beauty and attraction that it now enjoys. Mass tourism, climate change and pollution all threaten our beautiful water- ways; the predictable consequences of population growth combined with our selfish love for water.

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