Objects of Substance- The Swimming Pool

2013 Spring Hill Baths

The desire for a pool by the Lady Principal appears to have been motivated by a range of issues. The prevalence of disease was uppermost in the minds of the Brisbane public with dengue fever and the Spanish flu epidemic preventing public swimming across the early 1900s and the option of the School having its own pool would protect the girls from public bathing. This coupled with the fact that “…other Secondary Schools have managed to acquire their own Baths, and quite a number of Primary Schools can boost o f them too…” (1924 Annual Report) would have motivated and frustrated the principals of the times. Some hope appeared in 1924 when Kathleen Lyons, Acting Head Mistress, stated in her Annual Report that “… hope springs anew in our hearts that we too, if we exert ourselves sufficiently, may be able to raise the necessary money to build ourselves a Swimming Pool. That hope has been strengthened by the very generous offer by Mrs E Munro to give us the first £ 10 towards the Fund.” However, the expense of building a pool on campus appears to have deterred the Trustees when they must have surmised that a perfectly adequate pool, within walking distance, would suffice! In the Minutes dated 26 March 1926, a bleak note was made:

Swimming Pool. We do not favour the establishment of our own Swimming Bath.

Not to be deterred, the OGA President, Helen Maud Campbell (1905) in 1928, petitioned the Trustees with regard to building a pool. Their response: