THE STORY OF the Penang Swimming Club began on the rocks at Tanjong Bungah, at half-past nine on a Sunday morning, with a man in a bathing costume. On 10 April 1904, about 50 people had made their way along the north coast road to the new clubhouse, built on solid boulders with stretches of sandy beach on either side, and the magnificent mountains of Kedah a blue haze in the distance. Club president Arthur Robert Adams stood up in his swimming togs and called everyone to attention.[1]
“In a light and witty speech”, the Pinang Gazette reported, “he said that the opening of the Club marked an epoch in the history of Penang, and supplied a long-felt want.” He was sorry that there were no ladies present but hoped to invite them at some future date. He pointed out that “swimming was one of the instincts of the brute man, and besides being merely an amusement, was a manly and healthy exercise.” Then Adams told his audience that they might look upon “the small strip of water separating them from the island opposite as the Hellespont, and emulate the example of Leander [from Greek myth] by swimming over to the rocks opposite, though they would find no ravishing maiden there to lure them on.”
He was referring to the “pretty and rocky island of” Pulau Tikus, sitting just offshore. Unlike in the tragic myth, Adams cheerfully assured them, members “would doubtless be saved from the fate” of an untimely drowning “by the aid of a friendly sampan, and brought back to the Club to console themselves at the bar”. The bar, he hoped, would be well patronised: “he noticed a number of most noble supporters there already.” Naturally, they drank to the club’s prosperity, and a number of eager swimmers rushed down into the water. A ball was thrown about. W Jones set up his camera and took photographs of members, clad in proper bathing costumes, “as they squatted on the beach and upon the rocks close by”. But getting there was no picnic: it had taken 12 years, two governors, a newspaper letter war with Singapore, and most scandalously, two nude men.
PRIVATE SOLUTIONS FOR A PUBLIC NEED
Adams had arrived in Penang in 1888, joined the law firm of Hogan and Adams, and quickly established himself as that indispensable civic figure—committee man, volunteer officer and municipal commissioner, known to everyone as “the Champion of Penang”. On 8 January 1892, at the Penang Municipal Commissioners’ meeting, he moved “that steps be taken as soon as possible to establish a public sea swimming bath in Penang”. The motion was carried unanimously.
