Abstract :
Bathing machines had become ubiquitous in Britain during the 19th century and can be seen in photographs and engravings in massed ranks on beaches all round the coast: from Aberystwyth in Wales, which had 73 by the 1880s, to Aberdeen in Scotland, and from the more working class seaside resorts of Blackpool and Bridlington in the north of England, to the more fashionable Brighton and Bognor on the south coast. Each town could have several owners competing with each other to hire out their machines by the day, week or month, some being cheap and rudimentary, others more sophisticated and expensive. It was like all seaside occupations a precarious and seasonal one, with the possibility of the destruction of the business overnight in an unexpected storm. The machines were mainly a British device for, without doubt, the country was infected with prudery, but their use also conveyed some sort of status. It was the influence of British tourists that encouraged their appearance in places like Boulogne and Hardelot on the north coast of France. They were also present in Belgium and Germany. Like cricket, they spread across the British Empire but never really took off in the US, except for Newport, Rhode Island. Beach huts and bathing tents of lath and canvas replaced them, while some people learnt the intricacies of undressing and dressing under a towel. If bathing machines had one enormous advantage, it was that they avoided that long excruciating walk down a pebble or shingle beach. Bathing machines were not among Britain´s greatest inventions, though the Beale ones, which became a standard, were exported as far away as the East and West
