Scenes from 'the war against legs', 1928.

Given the heatwave that seems to have struck parts of western Europe recently, it's entirely appropriate that I ran across the following article today, which I originally discovered while researching a debate about police powers in the late 1920s.

Critics Shocked by Scanty Dress of Bathing Girls

Protests from Seaside and River: New Job for the Police

Special to “Reynolds’s”

Women’s dress—or, rather, the lack of it—is again a subject of excited discussion.

“Leg-mania” has arrived with the heat wave. One cannot be quite sure all the time, whether it is the effect of the heat on those who show their legs, or on those who criticise them.

Here is the latest list of places whence rise woeful protests at the display of the “female form divine.”

London
Southend
Paris
Arizona (where the wild men are)

In each centre the war against legs is being carried on with different tactics. In Arizona, for instance, where they don’t trust these matters to Watch Committees, the youths of the town declare that it is a “fight to the finish.” But in Southend the police have been ordered to keep a watch on girl bathers.

Did somebody say that the policeman’s lot was not a happy one?

This problem of legs has been in the public eye for a long time—since skirts showed a tendency to end soon after they began—but its present acute form began a few days ago, when a Thames Conservancy official ordered a boating party to put on more clothing.

A high official then stated: “We are not censorious of proper university costumes, but there are people who like to be a little daring and go to the extreme.”

Some of those people have been boating around Hampton Wick evidently, for this is what happened when the Joint Committee of the Port of London Authority met.

SCENES ON THE RIVER

Mr. G. Hammerton drew attention to what he called the “indecent clothing” worn by men and women on the river during the weekend.

“It was simply disgraceful, especially at Kingston Regatta, where parties were in the scantiest of bathing costumes making a disgraceful exhibition of themselves,” he declared.

Mr. W. Sanger attacked the modern two-piece bathing costume, and Mr. H. Hewitt, the Conservator, agreed that the scenes were very bad, particularly on Sunday.

Mr. Hammerton asked if the Thames Conservancy had any jurisdiction in the mater or was it one for the police.

The chairman, Mr. T. Ryan, said that no harm had been done by raising the matter, but he thought it sufficient if the Conservator informed the Conservancy that the matter had been discussed by that committee.

A KNIGHT, NOT IN ARMOUR

Mr. Sanger said that the members sitting round the table were all over a certain age, and therefore did not appreciate the mode of attire worn by those who frequented the river, especially in the hot weather. He wanted to know who the people were who complained about the dress.

Then up spake Mr. R. H. Berry. Like a chivalrous knight of old, he sprang to the defence of the fair ones in distress.

“I admire a well-shaped figure in a bathing costume,” he said.

Mr. Berry added that he was on the river during the week-end, and he saw a man, his wife, and children all in bathing costumes, and it was a very pretty sight.
Many will say, “Bravo, Mr. Berry!”

UNDRESSING ON THE BEACH

And now the scene moves to Southend. The following message was received from “Reynolds’s” correspondent last night—

The way in which girl bathers undress and dress themselves on the cliffs and on the beach at Southend-on-Sea, many of them without any attempt at secrecy, has offended the susceptibilities of some members of the Town Council.

Alderman Martin urged that steps ought to be taken without delay to put an end to the practice.

It is no uncommon thing, whilst walking along the beach by the pier, to encounter girls and young women donning or removing their bathing costumes with no tent or bathing wrap to conceal them from the public view.

Similarly, on the cliffs between the pier and Westcliff, they can be seen at week-ends divesting themselves of their ordinary attire on the grassy slopes and preparing themselves for the sea below.

In some cases, cars parked on the sea front serve the purpose of bathing huts.

The trouble is especially bad at weekends, when large numbers of trippers come down from London.

The police have been ordered to keep a watch for especially bad cases.

That the leg problem is as disturbing in America as it is here is revealed by the news that the men in the University of Arizona have decided to “shame” their girl colleagues into wearing more clothes. This is how a New York paper prints this exciting bit of news:

“Tuscon (Ariz.).—‘Steady there, young feller, jes’ keep your shirt on.’
The classic cry of the country constable echoes now on the University of Arizona campus. First, the girls took off their stockings and the lordly males took off their shirts in protest.

’Sfact! The sun-tanned, clear-eyed beauties of these windswept spaces recently took up the latest collegiate fad. Merrily pulling off their stockings, they came to class with bare brown limbs flying in the morning breeze.

The strong, silent men of the sun-baked plains regarded them with steady, level gaze and then muttered some collegiate equivalent of ‘That’s plum disgraceful, pardner.’

Wherefore, reprisals were started. When as and whenever a brown and fetching calf went flitting across the campus that soon were manly limbs exposed for all to see.

From assembly hall to dormitory went the call, ‘To arms!—and ribs and chests and backs—for modesty and for shame.’"

So that’s that. And now for Paris.

BISHOP’S DRESS BAN

A late Reuter telegram from the French capital says that a strong pronouncement against modern fashions has been made by the Bishop of St. Brieuc (Brittany), who protests against what he describes as the growing immodesty of women and girls, and even children.

The Bishop forbids any woman with bare arms, legs, or shoulders, or with too short a skirt, and even boys with shirts open too low at the neck, to enter any church or presbytery in his diocese.

Perhaps, after all, it is time this heat wave ended.

Reynolds's Illustrated News, 22 July 1928, p. 18.

Keep cool, people.

(The historical bycatch series.)

“The pleasure of the many cannot be made subservient to the prudery of the few”: or, “Wear as little as you can.”

Part of a series: a few things I ran across in Colindale yesterday.

Ban on Bare Legs?

Dancer Shocks Patrons of Royal Opera House

SHEIK-SLAVE SCENE

“Perfectly Proper,” Says Producer

The appearance of a bare-legged dancer in a song-scena at the Covent Garden Opera House, London, has so shocked the patrons of the Royal Opera House dances that the directors have decided that her costume must be “instantly modified,” or the production in which she appears will be banned.

In “While the Sahara Sleeps” there is a scene between the sheik and his Arabian dancing girl, who appears dressed in silver tinsel and with bare legs.

The protest against her dress was conveyed to the producers in a letter from Captain J. Russel Pickering, on behalf of the directors.

“We think the costume of the slave is distinctly indecorous,” says the letter, “and severe criticism has been levelled at us by our patrons. Bare legs on the ballroom floor do not, in our opinion, accord with the tradition of the Royal Opera House, and we must insist, unless the costume is instantly modified, on the banning of the scene altogether.”

“Frankly we are bewildered at the ultimatum,” said Mr. Lawrence Wright, the producer of the scena, to a Daily Herald representative yesterday. “The scena contains nothing that would not be considered perfectly proper at any vicarage tea party, and, besides, bare legs are the vogue at all the smartest fancy dress balls nowadays.”

Mr. Wright added that he was prepared to submit the matter to the theatre licensing authorities, and abide by their decision.

Daily Herald, 30 October 1926, p. 3

The story continued, and you'll be pleased to know it had a happy ending.

BAN ON BARE LEGS ENDS

Objection that Came from Killjoys

The banning by the Covent Garden Opera House authorities of the bare leg slave girl costume in the song scena, “While the Sahara Sleeps,” has been lifted, and the scena will again be produced in the ballroom of the opera house this evening. It had been taken off in consequence of the ban.

Capt. J. Russell Pickering, general manager of the lessees of Covent Garden Opera House, confessed to the Daily Herald last night that he acted hastily in setting up the ban.

“The real objection to the costume,” he said, “I found came from killjoy sources with which it would not be desirable to be associated.”

“After all, in these days, the pleasure of the many cannot be made subservient to the prudery of the few, and the sheik scene in Mr. Laurence Wright’s scena is not obscene.”

It is understood that had the ban not been lifted, it was intended to produce the scena elsewhere.

Daily Herald, 5 November 1926, p. 9

And this, though not inspired directly by indecorous operatic dancing, seems not entirely unrelated. (There was something of a mania for swimming the Channel in that era, hence the reference in the first line.)

WHY WOMEN ARE HARDIER

Short Skirts the Secret of Channel Swims

ADVICE TO MEN

Discard Collars and Wear Knickerbockers

“That women have been so successful in swimming the Channel is partly due to the fact that they have trained themselves to stand the cold better than men.”

This was the dictum of Professor Leonard Hill in a lecture on dress to an audience of women at the Institute of Hygiene, London, yesterday. He said a useful little lot of advice was, “Wear as little as you can.”

“I have no objection,” he added “to the low necks and bare or silk stockinged legs which women have gone in for, so long as they are reasonable.”

“Pneumonia blouses are all nonsense. No girl has ever caught pneumonia through wearing a low blouse. It hardens her and helps her to resist such diseases.”

“Silk stockings and short skirts are good things, especially artificial silk stockings, which allow ultra-violet rays to penetrate to the skin. Artificial silk is better than natural silk, because you can get sunburnt through it.”

“CODDLED MEN”

“Men were more coddled than women. It would be a great advantage if men got rid of their collars and took to open necks. Things were drifting that way. If men would go about in knickerbockers or running shorts it would be to their good.”

“With modern methods of education and constant exposure women seemed to be becoming the hardier sex. They were already coddling boys, and one day we might all be ruled by women.”

Daily Herald, 18 November 1926, p. 1.

Doctor Prof. Hill's call for men to adopt the collarless knickerbocker look fell, as far as I know, on deaf ears.

Which is, all in all, probably a good thing.

Showing some skin

Attending that media history conference I mentioned last week reminded me of a couple of things I've found in the newspaper archives which I've been meaning to post.

Of course, now I can't find them.

But I did run across a few other things, and -- not least since I'm feeling too harried by work-related writing obligations to spend much time commenting on the world -- I thought I'd put them up as part of my series on unexpectedly found history.

Today's instalment comes in a pair.

First, some intriguing -- and, by uptight British standards, quite sane -- commentary about the human body.

NECESSARY EVIL OF CLOTHES

Doctor on Short Skirts and Open Necks

"Not Immoral"

The modern woman, with her short skirts and sleeveless dresses, has a staunch upholder in Dr. William G. Savage, County Medical Officer of Health for Somerset.

In the course of an article on clothing, one of a weekly series issued by the Central Council for Health of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, Dr. Savage expresses surprise that "short skirts, which do not pick up the sweepings of the streets," and "the open neck and the sleeveless arms, which do give an opportunity for the ultra-violet rays of the sun to be absorbed," should be described as "immoral."

He thinks they are essentially healthy. "There is no doubt," he declares, "that woman has recognised that clothing is a necessary evil, and is doing her best to have as little of that evil as possible."

WARNING NOTE

The doctor is a firm believer in the value of cold baths in summer and gradual exposure, "to harden other parts of our skins so that when winter comes we need less clothing."

He adds, however, a warning note that hardening should be done judiciously, otherwise, "those who do it unwisely may pay the price and not be here to explain their unwisdom."

Conservative man, "muffled up in his tight collars and his heavy clothes, is far less hygienically clad." But Dr. Savage concedes him one point of superiority in that he does not wear the pointed, high-heeled boots and shoes favoured by many women.

In general, Dr. Savage's prescription is that "clothing must be sufficient to prevent cold, but not so abundant that it discourages the taking of exercise."

(The Daily Herald, 26 June 1929, p. 5.)

Same paper, next day:

GIRL WITH NO DRESS

Surprise on Arrest of Draper's Model

STRANGE CASE

A girl of 21 employed as a model at a wholesale draper's house was found to be without dress under her coat when arrested for shoplifting in the West End.

Gwen Smith, as she is named, admitted her offence when charged at Marlborough-street Police Court yesterday, and Mr. Mead remanded her.

The girl's father, a linen buyer, residing at Westcliff, explained that his daughter's duties necessitated her being without a dress, but he confessed that he could not understand whey she was out without one.

Mr. Mead asked if the girl had had any religious training?

The girl's father said he was a lay speaker in the Methodist Church, but his daughter was over age, and he could not force her.

POSITION OF FATHER

"Everyone who is a father sympathises with you," said Mr. Mead, "but it places me in a very embarrassing position. Is this sort of thing to go on?

"We get two or three cases every day. People who carry on legitimate businesses must be protected. The appalling and deplorable thing is that persons in high positions announce from the housetops that no young person must be punished for a first offence.

"It may be a very good thing, but it inadvisable that it should be proclaimed."

(The Daily Herald,27 June 1929, p. 4)

I am assuming that Mr. Mead was referring to the shoplifting part of the matter rather than the lack of a dress when he spoke of 'two or three cases every day'.

It is, though, possible that many people were simply taking Dr. Savage's good advice.