'The bloke with a stroke': Alick Wickham, the 'crawl' and social memory

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 39, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 309-324

  Osmond, Gary ^a   Phillips, Murray G ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049539313     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0022334042000290379     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. C. M. Colwin, Swimming Dynamics: winning techniques and strategics (Chicago 1999), 65-6. Emphasis in the original.
2. G. Osmond and M. G. Phillips, '"Look at that kid crawling": myth, race and the "Crawl" stroke', Australian Historical Studies (in press).
3. For discussion on the use of the crawl in the Solomon Islands, see Daily Telegraph, 5 Apr. 1911, p. 18;
4. Referee, 15 Jan. 1913, p. 9.
5. For a key newspaper report on Wickham's first race in Sydney, commenting on Dick Cavill's prior use of the crawl stroke, see Sydney Sportsman, 13 Mar. 1901, p. 7.
6. For a detailed discussion of 19th-century sporting racial discourses of Pacific Islanders, see Osmond and Phillips, '"Look at that kid crawling" '. Early press references to constructions of Pacific Islanders as 'natural' swimmers include Argus, 12 Jan. 1863, p. 5;
7. Referee, 22 Jan. 1913, p. 4.
8. C. Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism: history as social memory (Melbourne 1997), 8.
9. P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge 1989).
10. L. Jordanova, History in Practice (London 2000), 141-71.
11. M-R. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: power and the production of history (Boston 1995), 19.
12. A. Baer, 'Consuming history and memory through mass media products', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 4 (2001), 492.
13. J. Bale and M. Cronin, Sport and Postcolonialism (Oxford 2003).
14. S. Ryan, The Cartographic Eye: how explorers saw Australia (Cambridge 1996), 15.
15. See, e. g. , Sydney Sportsman, 19 Apr. 1911, p. 7;
16. Referee, 14 June 1911, p. 1.
17. D. Hellmrich, How to Swim Correctly: a comprehensive booklet on swimming, surfing, and natation generally (Sydney 1929), 11.
18. Osmond and Phillips, '"Look at that kid crawling" '.
19. Hellmrich, How to Swim Correctly, 11. The Referee newspaper, citing Frank Wickham, called the Roviana crawl the 'tuppa-tup-pala';
20. see Referee, 15 Jan. 1913, p. 9.
21. A photograph of Roviana youths leaping from such an apparatus appears in G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians (London 1910), facing 52. The spelling of ku-ku is phonetic, based on a telephone conversation with a Wickham relative, Milner Tozaka, 21 Feb. 2001.
22. C. Tatz, Obstacle Race: Aborigines in sport (Sydney 1995).
23. J. Bale and J. Sang, Kenyan Running: movement culture, geography and global change (London 1996).
24. J. M. Hoberman, Darwin's Athletes: how sport has damaged Black America and preserved the myth of race (Boston 1997).
25. See, e. g. , B. Carrington and I. McDonald, "Race", Sport, and British Society (New York 2001).
26. Graeme Dawson explains the appeal of the myth of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop on similar grounds: G. Davison, The Use and Abuse of Australian History (Sydney 2000), 32.
27. Sydney Sportsman, 19 Nov. 1902, p. 6;
28. Colwin, Swimming Dynamics, 95.
29. R. A. Howell and M. L. Howell, A History of Australian Sport (Drummoync, NSW 1987), 71.
30. J. Bale, Landscapes of Modern Sport (Leicester 1994);
31. Bale and Cronin, Sport and Postcolonialism.
32. D. Chu and J. Segrave, The Olympic Games in Transition (Champaign, IL 1988).
33. B. G. Rader, Baseball: a history of America's game (Urbana, IL 1992).
34. Colwin, Swimming Dynamits, 96.
35. For a recent repetition of the saga see G. Growden, The Snowy Baker Story (Milsons Point, NSW 2003), 12-13.
36. F. Carlile, Forbes Carlile on Swimming (London 1963), 140.
37. For tuppa ta pala, see Referee, 15 Jan. 1915, p. 9.
38. Reports of the use of the crawl stroke elsewhere in the Pacific include Sydney Sportsman, 19 Apr. 1911, p. 7 ('kanakas' in Sydney);
39. Referee, 15 Jan. 1915, p. 9 (Hawai'i);
40. Referee, 3 June 1914, p. 16 (Samoa).
41. Bale and Cronin suggest several types of postcolonial sports: Bale and Cronin, Sport and Postcolonialism, 4. Other prominent examples of the development and international dissemination of Pacific Islander body practices by Europeans include body surfing and surfboard riding. See Ben Finney and James D. Houston for an excellent discussion of the internationalisation of surfing: B. Finney and J. D. Houston, Surfing: a history of the ancient Hawaiian sport (San Francisco 1996).
42. D. B. Van Dalen, A World History of Physical Education: cultural, philosophical, comparative (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1953), 585.
43. R. A. Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: the challenge of film to our idea of history (Cambridge, MA 1995), 3.
44. Evolution of the Australian Crawl, documentary film, Kingcroft Australia for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, [Sydney] Australia, 1952.
45. Rosenstone, Visions of the Past, 57-8.
46. Years of Australian Swimming, documentary film, Australian Swimming, Canberra, 1999.
47. How They Swam: the evolution of the crawlstroke [sic], documentary film produced by Forbes and Ursula Carlilc for the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) World Clinic in New Orleans, 2001
48. Arrow, 2 Mar. 1901, p. 4;
49. J. Hoberman, 'Sport and ideology in the post-communist age', in L. Allison (ed. ), The Changing Politics of Sport (Manchester 1993), 18.
50. G. Golden, The Early European Settlers of the Solomon Islands (Melbourne 1993), 40.
51. Correspondence with Newington College archives, 2 Aug. 2000.
52. J. A. Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons: a history of a Pacific archipelago, 1800-1978 (Honolulu 1987), 362-75.
53. Appendix 4 details products and quantities shipped to Sydney c. 1854-96.
54. C. Moore, J. Leckie, and D. Munro (eds), Labour in the South Pacific (Townsville 1990).
55. C. Moore, ' "Good-bye, Queensland, good-bye, White Australia; good-bye Christians": Australia's South Sea Islander community and deportation, 1901-1908', The New Federalist, 4 (1999), 22.
56. H. Reynolds, North of Capricorn: the untold story of Australia's north (Crows Nest, NSW 2003).
57. Bernard Smith and Ann Stephen separately offer excellent treatments of such negative stereotypes; see B. Smith, Imagining the Pacific In the Wake of the Cook Voyages (Melbourne 1992);
58. A. Stephen (ed. ), Pirating the Pacific: images of travel, trade & tourism (Haymarket, NSW 1993).
59. N. Thomas, 'The beautiful and the damned', in Stephen, Pirating the Pacific, 44-6.
60. For a discussion of the impact of Christian humanitarianism on the 'kanaka' deportation debate see C. Weir, 'The work of mission: race, labour and Christian humanitarianism in the South-West Pacific, 1870-1930', PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 2003).
61. Stephen, Pirating the Pacific, 12.
62. See, e. g. , Referee, 22 Jan. 1913, p. 4;
63. Sydney Mail, 2 Dec. 1931, p. 29.
64. Douglas Booth offers an excellent account of issues relating to the development of Sydney's beach culture and the visit of Duke Kahanamoku in 1914-15;
65. D. Booth, Australian Beach Cultures: the history of sun, sand and surf (London 2001), 22-40. Other Pacific Islanders, including Alick Wickham and a Sydney gardener known as 'Tommy Tanna', have also been linked to the origins of Sydney surfing, further illustrating the popular associations of Islanders with Australian beach cultures.
66. Sun (Sydney), 28 Jan. 1977; G. Allen, 'He crawled over the water: Solomon Islander who swam into history', unidentified newspaper clipping located in 'Bronte Baths' file in Waverlcy Library Local History Collection, Sydney.
67. 'Foreign Correspondent', television programme, ABC Television, 4 July 2000.
68. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 14 Mar. 1998;
69. A. Honey, 'Sport, immigration restriction and race: the operation of the White Australia Policy', in R. Cashman et al. (eds), Sport, Federation, Nation (Sydney 2001), 35.
70. R. Cashman, Paradise of Sport: the rise of organised sport in Australia (South Melbourne 1995), 157.
71. Pacific Islands Monthly, 38 (1967), 27. No author is named in this obituary.
72. The Henning Library, International Swimming Hall of Fame (hereinafter ISHOF), letter to authors, 20 Mar. 2000; Leroy S. Sparks, letter to Buck Dawson, Exec. Director, ISHOF, 16 Feb. 1967, in 'Alick Wickham' file, ISHOF.
73. 'Alick Wickham: Honour Contributor', fact sheet, International Swimming Hall of Fame, n. d.
74. International Swimming Hall of Fame, 2002, 'Honorees: Solomon Islands', .
75. Beginners Corner: there's a story behind the stamp - the brothers Wickham showed the world a new way to swim, and Olympic Games 1984: Solomon Islands first participation in Olympic Games, Solomon Islands Philatelic Bureau Division, Ministry of Posts and Communications, 1984.
76. D. Altman, Paper Ambassadors: the politics of stamps (North Ryde, NSW 1991), 37-8.
77. P. Larmour, with. S. Tarua (eds), Solomon Islands Politics (Suva 1983), xi.
78. For a discussion of constitutional and political changes in pre-independence Solomon Islands, see Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons, 311-47.
79. Larmour with Tarua, Solomon Islands Politics, 164-95;
80. Davison, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, 34;
81. P. Cochrane, Simpson and the Donkey: the making of a legend (Carlton, Vic. 1992), 228-30.
82. Altman referred to the ability of stamps to play this very role when he wrote that stamps are used 'to portray messages or exhort certain behaviour'; Altman, Paper Ambassadors, 2.
83. Souvenir stamp booklet issued August 1984.
84. Olympic Games 1984: Solomon Islands first participation in Olympic Games.
85. Souvenir stamp booklet issued Aug. 1984.
86. Stamp & Coin Mart 2000, In the Swim of Things, story about origins of Solomon Islands souvenir stamp booklet featuring Wickham in 1984, viewed 23 Feb. 2001, .
87. Australia, House of Representatives 2000, Debates, 15482-83;
88. see . Mal Meninga was a rugby league player who is the descendent of an indentured Islander labourer in Queensland.
89. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 53-7.
90. For a comprehensive summary of the deconstruction of race and sport, see Carrington and McDonald, 'Race', Sport, and British Society.