From bush to beach: Nudism in Australasia

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 149-167

  Daley, Caroline ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BEACH; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; PUBLIC SPACE;

AUSTRALASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 19544375913     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2004.03.020     Document Type: Article

References (157)

1. For the British magazine, Cousins sometimes used the term naturist, but generally Australasians referred to themselves as nudists. In Australia and New Zealand the term bush is used to describe woodlands or forest. The term has been in use since the late 18th century. By the 20th century it was often used to distinguish between indigenous forest (bush) and exotic forest.
2. Health and Efficiency, January 1945, 6-8. The quote is from 8. In the article he mentions the 1939 publication.
3. Health and Efficiency, December 1946, 278.
4. On the German movement see C. Kenway, Nudism, health, and modernity: The natural cure as proposed by the German physical culture movement 1900-1914 Nineteenth Century Prose 25 1998 102-115
5. A. Krüger F. Krüger and S. Treptau Nudism in Nazi Germany: indecent behaviour or physical culture for the well-being of the nation International Journal of the History of Sport 19 2002 3354
6. K. Toepfer Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935 1997 Berkeley and Los Angeles
7. A. Clapham and R. Constable As Nature Intended: A Pictorial History of the Nudists, London 1982 37. Others claim 1924
8. A. Krüger There goes this art of manliness: Naturism and racial hygiene in Germany Journal of Sport History 18 1991 135
9. C. Cinder, The Nudist Idea, Riverside, CA, 1998, 507.
10. See also A. Clapham and R.Constable, As Nature Intended: A Pictorial History of The Nudists, London, 1982, 66-81. Other sources suggest the first club was formed in 1931
11. See A.M Turano, Nudism Denuded, American Mercury 1936 (1998) 161-166.
12. P.W. Cousins Nudism in New Zealand Solaire Universelle de Nudisme Magazine September-October 1955 7
13. Truth, 29 November 1933, 9. Note: Truth was, and is, a popular sensationalist weekly tabloid published in both Australia and New Zealand. All references to Truth in this article are from the New Zealand version.
14. The Auckland Sun Group, the Wellington Sunshine Club, the Hawke's Bay Sun Club and the Gisborne club were all formed in early 1938
15. See Daily Telegraph (Napier) 8 January 1938, 8 (for the Auckland club); 10 January 1938, 8 (for Wellington); 21 January 1938, 10 (for Napier); 27 January 1938, 9 (for Gisborne). Auckland and Wellington were major urban centres, and Gisborne and Napier towns with very high sunshine hours.
16. Health and Physical Culture (HPC) (Sydney), 1 November 1931, 14-15, 48-49
17. See also Smith's Weekly (Sydney), 4 June 1932, 6.
18. Smith's Weekly, 22 May 1937, 1-2. The report suggested that the club 'has established its headquarters in a carefully hidden pocket of the Dandenong Ranges, about 25 miles from Melbourne'. Other reports suggest that the Beacon club was formed as early as 1922, but these claims were made in the late 1940s, and no supporting evidence was offered in support.
19. See M. Clarke Nudism in Australia: A First Study 1982 Warun Ponds, Victoria 101
20. On the NSWSCC, established by Sydney nudist Ron Ashworth at Berowra, in the bush north of Sydney, See M. Clarke Nudism in Australia: A First Study 1982 Warun Ponds, Victoria 101
21. M. Clarke Nudism in Australia: A First Study 1982 Warun Ponds Victoria 102
22. Smith's Weekly, 11 September 1937, 2.
23. See, for example, his articles Nudism in New Zealand American Nudist Leader 3 28 1952 23
24. Nudism in New Zealand Solaire Universelle de Nudisme Magazine September-October 1955 7-9
25. Throughout this period, in Australia and New Zealand, it was common to use eugenic classifications of people, with A1 being the highest and best category. People worried about being C3 citizens. As with nudism, Australasians were familiar with the main tenets of eugenics from reading British and American works.
26. HPC was published monthly by Sydneysider Alfred Briton. It was freely available in New Zealand, and had many New Zealand subscribers and contributors. It published its first article on nudism in 1929, the year the magazine began. Throughout the 1930s HPC published numerous articles and letters on nudism, most of them supporting this new 'cult'. It continued to publish articles on nudism during the war years, but by this stage the magazine was in difficulties. It ceased publication in November 1945
27. Health and Sunshine enjoyed a short run in the mid 1930s. It was founded and edited by Trevor G. Bain, who also wrote the first New Zealand book-length work on nudism, Nudism - Is It Desirable? Auckland, 1937
28. For letters and articles on nudism see Health and Sunshine, 16 November 1936, 2, 10 April-May 937, 4-5; July 1937, 456, 457, 467
29. The key individual was Sydney nudist, Ron Ashworth. He published a range of nudist magazines for Australians and New Zealanders, including Australian Sunbather and the Australasian Sunbathing Quarterly Review.
30. Besides Bain's book, Alfred Briton's publishing company produced Mixed Nudist Camps Throughout the World, Sydney, 1939, a 'fully illustrated' book which brought together most of the articles on nudism published in HPC during the 1930s.
31. It should be noted that on the east coast of Australia especially the bush often goes down to the beach line. In such instances, nudists could form bush camps with easy access to the sand and surf. This was not possible for most New Zealand nudist camps.
32. For the British movement and the idea of 'idyll-izing' the rural, see D. Bell R. Holliday Naked as nature intended Body and Society 6 2000 127-140
33. The idyll-ization quote comes from 128. For examples of Australians arguing for the bush as their Eden, see HPC, 1 July 1935, 30-31, 52
34. Man Junior, January. 1938, 36-37
35. Man and Man Junior were early examples of magazines for 'lads', prototypes for Playboy and FMH. Both were published in Australia, and were freely available in New Zealand.
36. The most famous of these writers in the early twentieth century were Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson who wrote for the Australian weekly, the Bulletin. As with many Australian publications, the Bulletin was widely read in New Zealand.
37. These sentiments were often expressed in mainstream press articles on nudism, especially around the time the 'nude cult' first came to public attention. They were also found in health-oriented publications. For a representative sample of the former, see New Zealand does not want cult of nakedness, Truth29 November (1933) 9
38. Should we all join the nude cult? Australian Women's Weekly 1 September (1934) 10
39. Sun and sex, New Zealand Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Review 24 February (1938) 3
40. For a representative sample of the latter see the letter in HPC from F, Winter of Masterton (1 June 1933, 46) and the articles Why nudists go nude (1 December 1934, 20-21, 54-55, 58) Let's O.K. Sane But Semi-Nudism (1 March 1935, 44-45), If You Must Be a Nudist (1 October 1937, 9) and Have Nudists No Sense of Decency? 1 July 1938; 32-33.
41. R. Shields Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity 1991 London
42. R. Shields Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity 1991 London and New York 6
43. On bathing costumes and sunbathing at the beach in Australia see D Booth, Nudes in the sand and perverts in the dunes Journal of Australian Studies, 53 (1997) 170-182
44. D. Booth, Australian Beach Cultures: The History of Sun, Sand and Surf, London 2001
45. For New Zealand see, C. Daley, Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960, Auckland, 2003, especially chapter four
46. The origins of this historical shift can be traced to C. McGregor, People, Politics and Pop: Australians in the 1960s, Sydney, 1968
47. C. McGregor, The Beach, the coast, the signifier, the feral transcendence and pumpin' at Byron Bay, in: D. Headon, J. Hooton, D. Horne (Eds), The Abundant Culture: Meaning and Significance in Everyday Australia, St Leonards, NSW, 1995, 51-60
48. For more recent historiographical discussion of this, see K. Saunders, 'Specimens of superb manhood: The lifesaver as national icon' Journal of Australian Studies, 56 (1998) 96-105
49. D. Denoon, P. Mein Smith, and M. Wyndham, A history of Australia New Zealand and the Pacific Oxford 2000 especially 216-218, 432-435
50. P. Gibbons Cultural colonization and national identity New Zealand Journal of History 36 2002 5-17
51. The idea of cultural colonisation is taken from the work of Peter Gibbons. See P. Gibbons, Cultural colonization and natural identity, Journal of Australian Studies, 56 (1998) 96-105. While settlers literally colonised the land, Gibbons argues that this process was and is ongoing, and takes many forms, writing history being one way that cultural colonisation continues
52. M. Harper, Sensuality in sandshoes, Australian Historical Studies 31 (2000) 287-303
53. K. Ross, Schooled by nature: Pakeha tramping between the wars, New Zealand Journal of History, 36 (2002) 51-65
54. For an excellent discussion of how this 'art of right living' was carried out in England, see D. Matless, Landscape and Englishness, London, 1998
55. No overview history of nudism in New Zealand exists, but for Australia see M. Clarke Nudism in Australia: A First Study 1982 Warun Ponds, Victoria
56. Douglas Booth details the Australian history regarding bathing costume and sunbathing bylaws at beaches in Australian Beach Cultures, chapter 3
57. For New zealand, see C. Daley Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960 2003 Auckland 126-151
58. Health and Sunshine, April-May 1937, 5.
59. This example was used by 'Spartan', a self-described 'country person' from the Central Hawke's Bay township of Onga Onga, when he wrote in support of establishing a nudist camp in Hawke's Bay. Daily Telegraph, 9 March 1938, 8
60. W. Wellby Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View 1934 London 63. Wellby's book was a major source of inspiration and information for Bain's 1935 monograph. 35. HPC, 1 July
61. HPC, 1 July 1935, 31.
62. Man Junior, January 1938, 34-38. Quotes from 34, 35.
63. Man Junior, January 1938, 38.
64. See the description of the Auckland (New Zealand) Nudist Club in Australian Sunbather, June 1948, 30. It notes that the club has 'the first requirements of an ideal Nudist Club... absolute privacy, native bush, and a natural swimming pool'. With 16 acres to roam in, the site was also spacious.
65. Health and Sunshine, April-May 1937, 5.
66. The term 'art of right living' is taken from D. Matless Landscape and Englishness 1998 London
67. T Bain, Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 30
68. Australian Sunbather, September 1950, 16.
69. For a discussion of embodied English citizenship see D. Bell R. Holliday Naked as nature intended Body and Society 6 2000 129
70. D. Matless Visual culture and geographical citizenship: England in the 1940s Journal of Historical Geography 22 1996 424-439
71. On physical culture and German nudist camps see C. Kenway Nudism, health, and modernity: The natural cure as proposed by the german physical culture movement 1900-1914 Nineteenth Century Prose 25 1998 102-115
72. See also Kruger, There goes this art of manliness, 143-148.
73. Daily Telegraph, 21 January 1938, 10.
74. W. Wellby Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View 1934 London, 36
75. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 35-36
76. Australian Sunbather, July 1949, 5.
77. Australasian Sunbathing, Quarterly Review, Summer 1949 9
78. See also Australian Sunbather, April 1951, 11.
79. W. Wellby Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View, London 1934 54
80. Daily Telegraph, 24 February 1938, 8.
81. Daily Telegraph, 9 February 1938, 8.
82. HPC, 1 October 1939, 19. It should be noted that E.E.D claimed that Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, who wore a loincloth before they were civilized, were 'clever and crafty'.
83. Truth, 15 March 1939, 1.
84. HPC, 1 February 1940, 39.
85. T. Bain, Nudism - Is It Desirable? Auckland 1937, 3
86. Man Junior, January 1938, 36-37.
87. T. Bain, Nudism - Is It Desirable? Auckland 1937, 65
88. For another example of Australians arguing for the bush as their Eden, see HPC, 1 July 1935, 30-31, 52.
89. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable 1937 Auckland back page
90. Health and Sunshine, July 1937, 457.
91. HPC, 1 October 1939, 18.
92. See, for example, the spokesman for the proposed Wellington nudist club, Daily Telegraph, 10 January 1938, 8
93. 'Nudist' of Napier, Daily Telegraph, 31 January 1938, 8
94. the secretary of the Hawke's Bay Sun Club, Daily Telegraph, 24 February 1938, 8
95. T. Bain, Nudism - Is it Desirable?, 1937, 11-12
96. E. de Villiers, Nudism and the classic games, Health and Sunshine July (1937) 467
97. A.P. Gascoigne, hpc 1 February 1940, 44
98. W. Wellby, Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View, London, 1934, 1
99. For a scholarly discussion of this phenomenon, see J. Mouratidis, The origin of nudity in Greek athletics, Journal of Sport History 12 (1985) 213-232
100. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 70
101. This idea is discussed in the German context by G. Mosse Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe 1985 Madison
102. D. Belland and R. Holliday Naked as Nature Intended Body and Society 6 2000 133
103. A. Clapham and R. Constable As Nature Intended: A Pictorial History of The Nudists 1982 London 13. Clapham wrote the text and Constable took the photographs
104. For Australasian denials that nudism was sexually suggestive, see, for example, HPC 1 July 1931, 10-11; 1 November 1931, 49; 1 May 1932, 48; 1 August 1933, 50; 1 October 1933, 58; 1 September 1937, 17; 1 June 1938, 27; 1 February 1939, 32; 1 May 1939, 56; 1 July 1939, 20-21.
105. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 71
106. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland, 62
107. See, for example Jonathon Harper's report on Auckland's nudist clubs, Auckland Metro, March 1984, 103-112
108. and Cathrin Schaer's article on the 44th annual nudist rally in New Zealand, More Magazine, March 1996, 40.
109. Truth, 21 December 1955, 1.
110. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 22
111. Australian Sunbather, November 1946, n.p
112. Australasian Sunbathing Quarterly Review, Summer 1949, 1
113. Truth, 21 December 1955, 1.
114. R. Barcan 'The moral bath of bodily unconsciousness': Female nudism, bodily exposure and the gaze Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 15 2001 314
115. Daily Telegraph, 21 January 1938, 10.
116. Truth, 25 January 1956, 15
117. See also a report of the expulsion of a man from a Lower Hutt nudist club for making indecent suggestions to a teenage girl Truth 1957 3 September 1957, 19
118. T. Bain Nudism - Is it Desirable? 1937 Auckland 68
119. Writing about his experiences at the Cap d'A'Agde nudist resort, Paul Ableman noted that during the entire week he was there, 'I never so much as brushed against another person'. For Ableman this was a most unnatural, and unnerving experience P. Ableman The Banished Body 1984 London 103
120. Even in the 1990s, 'older members' of the Auckland Outdoor Health Club argued that holding hands should not be allowed. More Magazine, March 1996, 38, 39
121. The middle class 'tastes and morals' of nudist clubs are discussed by D. Bell and R. Holliday Naked as nature intended Body and Society 2000 6 (2000) 131. While they, and David Matless, whom they cite, cast this as a very English trait, the Australasian evidence points to this being a wider pattern.
122. W. Wellby Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View 1934 London 29
123. Man Junior, January 1938, 36.
124. W. Wellby Naked and Unashamed: Nudism from Six Points of View 1934 London 50
125. Here and Now (New Zealand), March 1957, 26.
126. Wellington nudists never had to worry about being scorched by the sun. Given the area's climate, wind burn was more of a problem than sun burn.
127. Truth, 26 April 1960, 3; 3 May 1960, 13
128. Truth, 31 July 1935, 12; 19 May 1959, 10
129. Truth, 15 February 1956, 11.
130. Man, December 1936, 94.
131. In New Zealand, a commission on juvenile sexual immortality was held in 1954, following reports of teenagers engaging in after-school orgies. These activities, and the report of the commission, have generated a large body of historical literature. See, in particular M. Molloy Science, myth and the adolescent female: The Mazengarb Report, the Parker-Hulme Trial, and the Adoption Act of 1955 Women's Studies Journal 9 1993 1-25
132. R. Shuker R. Openshaw and J. Soler Youth, Media and Moral Panic in New Zealand Palmerston North 1990
133. R. Yska All Shook Up: The Flash Bodgie and The Rise of the New Zealand Teenager in the Fifties 1993 Auckland
134. Similar concerns in Australia have also been discussed by many historians. See, in particular R. Evans, So tough? masculinity and rock'n'roll culture in post-war Australia Journal of Australian Studies 56 1998 125-137
135. R. Evans '...To try to ruin': Rock'n'R'roll, youth culture and law'n'order in Brisbane, 1956-1957 Australian Historical Studies 28 1997 106-119
136. J. Stratton The Young Ones: Working-Class Culture, Consumption and the Category of Youth 1992 Perth
137. T. Wilson When rock'n'roll came to town: Young people, popular music and moral panic New Transitions 8 2000 30-35
138. Secretary for Justice to Minister of Justice, 29 June 1955, J, 1, W2304, 18/45/7, Archives New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand (ANZ).
139. Secretary for Justice to Minister of Justice, 13 November 1956, J, 1, W2304, 18/45/7, ANZ.
140. See the editorial in the New Zealand nudist quarterly, National Review, Autumn (1957)
141. 1. See also Australian Sunbather, April 1951, 33. Some artists turned to nudist magazines to source pictures of the liberated male body, a use of the photographs which the nudists did not anticipate.
142. See D. McCarthy Social nudism, masculinity and the male nude in the work of William Theo Brown and Wynn Chamberlain in the 1960s Archives of American Art Journal 38 1998 28-38
143. Australian Sunbather, January 1952, 24. In the 1950s the term bodgie was used to describe young men who dressed and behaved in ways the establishment disapproved of. Widgies were their female counterparts. They were 'folk devils' in the way that Mods and Rockers were in England.
144. See for example Truth 14 September 1955 25
145. See also a 1956 information brochure for the Wellington Sun and Health Society, J, 1, W2304, 18/45/7, ANZ. The claim was repeated in an article in praise of nudism which appeared in a New Zealand police training school magazine, and was reprinted in Sun and Health (International Edition), 29, 301, 1965, 27
146. See also New Zealand Naturist, Winter 1967 25
147. Secretary for Justice to Minister of Justice, 26 June 1956, J, 1, W2304, 18/45/7, ANZ; Secretary for Justice to Minister of Justice, 13 November 1956, J, 1, W2304, 18/45/7, ANZ; Truth, 15 September 1959, 28.
148. HPC, 1 July 1938, 32. Emphasis in original.
149. New Zealand Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Review, 24 February 1938, 3.
150. Man Junior, January 1946, 33.
151. Man Junior, October 1959, 10.
152. On the English equivalent of this see D. Bell and R. Holliday, Naked as nature intended, Body and Society 6 (2000) 131
153. Discussing the British naturist movement of the 1930s, Matless mentions George Formby's 'little snapshot album' and his fitness skit Keep Fit, a film that poked fun at 'Biceps, Muscle and Brawn'. Keep Fit screened in New Zealand in 1938. The 'nudge and wink satire' of England did not take long to travel to the antipodes. See D. Matless, Landscape and Englishness, London, 1998, 96-97
154. C. Daley Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960 Auckland 2003 91
155. D. Booth Nudes in the sand and perverts in the Dunes Journal of Australian Studies 53 1997 170-182
156. New Zealand Woman's Weekly, 3 April 1978, 11.
157. For a discussion of the bodily freedom women feel on Australian nudist beaches see R. Barcan 'The moral bath of bodily unconsciousness': Female nudism, bodily exposure and the gaze Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 15 2001 303-317