Eunice posted: "My visit to Manchester's Victoria Baths a couple of weeks ago gave me a great opportunity to photograph the many lovely stained glass windows and door panels to be found throughout the building. There would certainly have been no expense spared when these" Life In The Mouse House
My visit to Manchester's Victoria Baths a couple of weeks ago gave me a great opportunity to photograph the many lovely stained glass windows and door panels to be found throughout the building. There would certainly have been no expense spared when these were originally installed and most of them were just too nice to ignore. My time spent looking round also produced several interesting facts and stories about some of the people connected to the building over the years since it opened, many of whom achieved notable success in aquatic sports.
From its opening in September 1906 Victoria Baths had four resident superintendents, the first of these being John Derbyshire. Originally the manager of Osborne Street Baths he had quite a large input in the planning of Victoria Baths, moving into the on-site flat with his family when the building opened and he took up the higher position of General Superintendent of Manchester Baths and Wash-houses, responsible for all the baths and wash-houses in the city. The job came with a horse, carriage, and on-site stable and John would take the wages round in his carriage every Friday. Apparently the horse knew the way to all the baths and also knew all the pubs along the route.
Windows and door panels in the Superintendent's flat
John Derbyshire was followed by Mr Teasdale who oversaw many improvements and modernisations at Victoria Baths, including the 1930 introduction of chlorination to improve the water quality in the pools. Superintendent from 1945 to 1960 was Mr Botham and he and Mrs Botham had four children who were all good swimmers. At Helsinki in 1952 their older son Roy and younger daughter Jean became the first brother and sister to compete at the same Olympic Games. The last people to live in the Superintendent's flat were Mr Hitchin and his family who lived there from 1960 to 1971, and one of Mrs Hitchin's duties was to let the clock winder in every Thursday morning to wind the clock, then twice a year to change the hour.
Victoria Baths was at the centre of Manchester's swimming activities throughout most of the 20th century, producing many successful swimmers over the years, and the first to be connected to the building was Rob Derbyshire, son of the first Superintendent. Born in 1878 Rob swam from a very early age and won his first prize for swimming when he was just six years old; he was only 16 when he made his international water polo debut, going on to make nine appearances for England between 1895 and 1900. He was also a very successful freestyle swimmer and was the British 100 yards champion for six consecutive years from 1898. In 1907 he became the first British swimmer to swim that distance in under a minute and he also represented Britain at three Olympic Games (1904, 1908 and 1912) winning two gold medals and a bronze.
One of two identical end windows in the Gala pool
An excellent diver, Richard 'Dick' Morris trained at Victoria Baths from 1910 onwards and won several prizes for his diving. In August 1915, during the First World War, he was on board the HMT Royal Edward troopship crossing the Mediterranean en route for Gallipoli when the ship was hit by a German torpedo, sinking stern-first in six minutes and with a huge loss of life. Dick's swimming and diving skills came to the fore however as he was able to dive clear of the sinking ship and keep himself and a friend afloat until rescue came.
Gala pool 'Aqua' window
Gala pool 'Zephyr' window
Born in 1919 in the Chorlton area of the city Zilpha Grant was a British freestyle swimmer who learnt to swim through her school's swimming programme at Victoria Baths where her instructor saw her potential and encouraged her to develop and improve her skills as a member of the South Manchester Swimming Club. At the age of 17 she competed for Great Britain in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin and went on to win a silver medal in the freestyle relay at the 1938 Empire Games in Australia.
Female pool end window
John Besford was born in 1911 and from an early age showed great promise in swimming, especially at backstroke. He swam for Britain in the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam and in the 1930 Empire Games in Canada, but is probably best remembered for causing German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to have a tantrum. At the 1934 European Championship in Magdeburg, Germany, John competed for, and won, the 100 metre backstroke title against German swimmer Ernst Kuppers. Hitler was so confident that Kuppers would win he had commissioned a magnificent bronze eagle trophy to present to him, however when John Besford won the race Hitler stormed out of the stadium and refused to give him the trophy. It was later presented to him by one of Hitler's officials and was triumphantly brought back to Manchester.
2nd Class pool/sports hall end windows
Another talented swimmer who trained at Victoria Baths was Ethel 'Sunny' Lowry, daughter of a fish wholesaler and second cousin to artist L S Lowry. Born in 1911 she began swimming as a young child and soon became very successful in both swimming and diving competitions; when asked by her secondary school headmistress what she wanted to do when she left school she said her ambition was to swim the English Channel. Encouraged by her father she practised swimming in the sea at the family's holiday home in North Wales and took part in several competitions on Windermere.
Sunny soon became adept at long-distance swimming and was selected to train with well-known long distance swimming trainer Jabez Wolffe on the south coast, where her routine included a daily breakfast of an 8-egg omelette and 4 hours training in the sea at Margate. Her training wasn't without criticism however; she had ditched the conventional heavy wool one-piece swimsuit in favour of a light two-piece (considered quite daring for the time) and because about an inch of flesh was visible around her midriff she was called 'indecent' and a 'harlot' by some members of the public who saw her on the beach.
After two unsuccessful attempts to swim the Channel Sunny finally achieved her ambition at the age of 22 on August 28th/29th 1933. She swam all night, going from Cap Gris Nez in France to St Margaret's Bay, Dover, in 15 hours and 41 minutes, during which she had to contend with strong currents and shoals of stinging jellyfish, and drank coffee, cocoa and beef tea swigged from a medicine bottle dangled over the side of the escort boat.
Having achieved her Channel swim Sunny went on to become a swimming and life-saving instructor and campaigned for the introduction of life-saving lessons as an essential part of the school curriculum. In her later years she was a very active campaigner for the restoration of Victoria Baths and represented the Baths in BBC2's Restoration series in 2002. In 2006 she acted as advisor to Little Britain star David Walliams before his charity swim across the Channel and also that year she was awarded the MBE for her life-long dedication to swimming. She continued swimming well into her 90s and died in February 2008 at the age of 97; in 2010 a stained glass window was commissioned by the Friends of Victoria Baths and installed in her memory in the original Females entrance.
Photo part of a Sunny Lowry display
Victoria Baths has been used many times as a filming location for tv programmes including Life On Mars (2005) Eric and Ernie (2011) Cold Feet series 7 (2017) Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Peaky Blinders (both 2018) and one very well known person who filmed there was Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees, who lived not far from the Baths in the late 1950s. In 1984 Barry released his first solo album Now Voyager and much of the accompanying (rather weird) feature-length time-travelling fantasy video was shot at Victoria Baths, with a photo of the Gala pool featuring on the album and cd covers.
Although Victoria Baths has many lovely stained glass windows the Turkish Rest Room is one of the most memorable spaces in the building. Tiled from floor to ceiling the room has four very unique windows, three of which depict sunrise, noon and evening with the famous Angel of Purity in the centre bay. These windows were absolutely beautiful so after my initial look round the room I went back later to make sure I'd got all the photos I possibly could.
Roof lights in the Turkish Baths corridor
Sunrise, noon and evening
The Angel of Purity
Getting to Victoria Baths by public transport wasn't too difficult - a 20-minute bus ride from the city centre then a 15-minute walk - and it was certainly worth the journey. I enjoyed every minute of the time I spent in there and it's now on my list of places to return to in the not-too-distant future.
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