Edwardian beach style
Handling the heat with more than a little elegance.
Alex Q. Arbuckle
1906
Britain and Europe, late summer of 1906 — a heat wave. Edward Linley Sambourne, chief cartoonist at Punch Magazine and keen amateur photographer, was out and about with his concealed camera on the south coast of Britain and the north coast of Belgium.Sambourne photographed people trying to beat the heat at Brighton and Folkestone. In the stiff coastal breeze, women struggled to hold onto their large, elaborate hats. Some women anchored their hats with fine scarves. He captured crowded beach scenes at Weymouth, where younger women had removed more clothes, perhaps because it was more sheltered and hot on the beach.Probably without her consent, Sambourne took pictures of a woman emerging from the sea and entering a bathing machine, a large wagon propelled in or out of the water by horse or human power. Wagons allowed people to change into and out of bathing costumes while preserving their modesty. This was very important in Victorian society — legal segregation of beaches by gender was enforced until 1901, only five years before Sambourne caught this particular woman unawares.A few months earlier, on a ferry to Ostende in northern Belgium, Sambourne appears to have become fixated with a particular couple on the ferry. He took several pictures and apparently made a nuisance of himself, judging by the woman’s visible annoyance. Either that or seasickness...
