Guelph gets in the swim: Swimming tanks invade the Royal City

The following notice in the OAC Review heralds the arrival of a new sport facility in Guelph, the swimming bath (1894, v. 5, n. 5, p. 6):

The sound of the hammer is again heard within the walls of the gymnasium. In the basement a large swimming bath is being put in, while in the hall a very capacious stage is under construction.

Previously limited to outdoor splashing, the Royal City was getting its first taste of indoor swimming.

As noted previously, the history of (outdoor) swimming in Guelph went through some interesting changes in the pre-WWI era. Bathing started out as a purely informal activity undertaken at "swimming holes" abounding in the Royal City's creeks and rivers. This sort of bathing was practiced mainly by young men and often without the benefit of dress.

Attempts were made to render this sort of bathing "decent" by mandating the wearing of bathing costumes and encouraging the setup of commercial bathing houses, the most prominent of which was Hazelton's baths. However, success was achieved only with the construction of a family-oriented swimming hole in Riverside Park, which combined the 19th century swimming hole with the Edwardian amusement park where a genteel standard of decorum was expected and enforced.

At the same time, swimming in Guelph was influenced by another change in the wider world, namely the rise of swimming as a sport. Bathing was an activity indulged as a social pastime and a relief from summer heat but swimming was a form of locomotion in the water and, thus, could be performed competitively. In England, indoor pools first opened in 1828 with swimming races following a decade later. Interest in the sport followed English migrants to the new world

In 19th century Canada, universities and colleges were centers of innovation in sport. Football, hockey, and soccer were first pursued in a broad, organized fashion in the nation's institutions of higher learning, with interest spreading from there to the wider public (Morrow 2017). Much the same was true for swimming, though the sport did not achieve the same profile as football or hockey.

The idea of "physical education" did find its way as a subject taught during instructional hours, especially activities such as marching or drill that had military associations. Sports such as football, that were regarded as having a warlike side were sanctioned also, though as activities pursued outside of regular teaching.

Although it was not a warlike activity, swimming was accepted in a roughly similar vein. Competitive swimming and diving were vigorous endeavours that could bring glory to the victors and their institutions. Swimming was also endorsed by luminaries such as Egerton Ryerson, the superintendent of education in Ontario from 1844 through 1876. So, it is not surprising that the Report of the Provincial Farm Commission, that laid out paramaters for the new Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) in Guelph, included the following recommendation (Mercury, 9 March 1874):

That there should also be a building attached to the main edifice, containing a sufficient supply of baths for the use of the pupils, and, if possible, a swimming-bath.

It is also not surprising that this recommendation was not carried out. Although desireable, a swimming bath was not a high priority at the small, rural college.

Things began to look up for swimming at the OAC when the Gymnasium/Convocation Hall was built in 1891. Although it was still a multi-purpose building, the gymnasium showed the commitment of the mature OAC to physical education. Two years later, a "swimming tank" was incorporated in the Gymnasium's basement, a normal place for a swimming pool at the time. The building operations column of the Mercury provides the following description (2 November 1893):

T. Matthews [a Guelph builder], swimming bath at O.A. College gymnasium, 16 feet deep, 20 wide and 40 long. Cost, $2000.

A nice image of the gymnasium is provided in the postcard below, by an unmarked publisher:

The postcard was sent in 1920, although the picture is from much earlier, to a Miss Helen Clifford of Ancaster from her friend, who was likely a student at the adjoining Macdonald Institute:

Box 19. O.A.C. Guelph // July 19, 1920. // Dear Miss Clifford :— Your letter received & I enjoyed it so much. Many thanks—but I would rather if you had not done that. We had some fine music & singing yesterday afternoon. Your sincere friend, May Muir

How odd to scold a friend for writing a letter! This response may be explained if Miss Clifford owed her friend a letter but had not sent one when the missive from Ancaster arrived. Perhaps feeling chastised, Miss Clifford has lashed out with this (mere) postcard of the Gymnasium in reply. After 100 years, it is hard to be certain.

In any event, the Gymnasium is a dignified building with large windows for good illumination (although the effect is diluted a little by the three milk cans holding open the side door). Windows along the ground level would have provided the main illumination for the swimming tank beneath.

There is little further mention of the swimming tank in the OAC Review for the next decade. In 1897, it is mentioned that the tank might be used as a water reservoir in case of fire, which, although practical, still seems like faint praise. It seems that use of the tank was casual, with certain professors perhaps taking classes there to lead occasional swimming and life-saving lessons as interest and their abilities allowed. This sort of use was not unusual for swimming pools in late Victorian Canada.

Even so, the swimming tank was enough of a success that it was eventually improved. In 1904, the OAC Review provides the following remarks (v. 16, n. 8, p. 68):

We are pleased to note the alterations and improvements being made in the basement of the gymnasium. The swimming bath is to be made fifteen feet longer, the lockers and other obstructions removed from the sides of the bath, and all the old wooden floor replaced by cement. These changes will give more room for swimming, and better access to the bath. They will also make the basement a bright clean place, instead of the dark dirty dungeon it was before. Greater interest in aquatic sport should result from this improvement, and next year we hope to see a large number of the boys joining in this excellent exercise.

[Unhappily, pictures of the swimming tank itself in the University of Guelph archives are not available at the moment.]

(Picture of George C. Creelman, OAC President 1904–1913; From "OAC—"Science with practice"", 1924.)

The improvements may have come at the behest of George Creelman, who became President of the OAC in that year. In 1906, President Creelman had Mr. Corsan, Varsity team swimming instructor at the University of Toronto, visit the College to give a lecture and practical demonstration of swimming and life-saving to interested students (OAC Review, v. 18, n. 4, pp. 188–189). One highlight was the life-saving demonstration, given in the lecture:

When the discourse turned on life-saving, it became necessary to have a subject on whom he could operate. For this purpose [he] chose Scotty Chisholm, and as events turned out, the choice was well made ; Chisholm’s struggles were so realistic that Mr. Corsan found him as hard to save as a drowning person.

Of course, the true highlight was the practical part:

After the lecture we adjourned to the basement, where Mr. Corsan proceeded to give us a practical demonstration in the water. He coached a few fellows, who took advantage of his very kind offer to help any of the students to improve their swimming. The final act was a race between Treherne and the instructor. The result was a dead heat.

Did Mr. Corsan hang back in order not to discourage Traherne? Who now can say?

After this point, mentions of swimming in the Review become regular, although not frequent. In May 1907, for example, a swimming, diving, and life-saving competition were included in a general, year-end athletic competition (v. 19, n. 8). The main event was swimming underwater for the longest distance—a modest beginning but a beginning nonetheless.

Finally, a Swimming Club was formed by students in 1909 (OAC Review, v. 21, n. 6, pp. 355–356). Its first event was held in February, whereupon Mr. Corsan returned to provide another demonstration and supervise the competition. Four teams of OAC students entered and competed in a variety of events. Reminiscent of contemporary picnic games, events included a 50- and 175-yard races—in addition to "walking the greasy pole" and "diving for plates," the latter two of which caused much amusement. Over 200 students witnessed the spectacle.

A select team of OAC students, Treherne, Ryan, Bell-Irving, Harries, and Cleverly, journeyed to Toronto to take on swimmers from the University of Toronto and McGill. Harries was the hero in the underwater swim and placed second in the "plunge for distance." Ryan placed third in the "swimming three styles" event. Although Varsity and McGill dominated the awards, as would be expected, the OAC team had made a promising start.

That fall, another OAC team had a friendly match against Varsity in which they improved their performance, although still losing overall to the more experienced team (OAC Review, v. 21. n. 7, pp. 406–408). This event consisted mainly of serious events such as a 100-yard race and "50 yards back swim," as well as diving. However, it did include a tub race.

For the first time, a picture of the OAC swim team is included:

At last, swimming had truly arrived at the OAC.

To top the matter off, the same issue notes that the OAC held an intramural water polo tournament. Each year of students was invited to enter a team, with only the fourth year declining. The second-year team was dominant throughout and went undefeated 4–0, the third year team went an even 2–2, while the first-year squad finished 0–4.

The following year, the OAC Review notes that the College registered with the Canadian Amateur Swimming Association and the Ontario Water Polo League, so that its swimmers could enter official competitions (1910, v. 22, n. 7). In fact, the OAC Water Polo team carried off the Wainless Trophy in a tournament against the Toronto Swim Club, University of Toronto, and the Paris YMCA.

The swimming tank was finally successful in its invasion of the OAC. Competitive swimming in a regulation, indoor pool was firmly established at the College. Like other sports practiced on university campuses in the period, swimming in pools might be expected to attract attention in town. But, that is a story for another time.

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The Gymnasium building was located where the MacKinnon Green is now, along the Winegard Walk. Construction of the new ImprovLab and theatre is taking place there, which will see the return of the site as a performance venue. Perhaps the shovels will uncover traces of Guelph's first swimming pool, ever hidden out of sight.

"Return tickets to Gourock can now be had all along the line": The big railway comes to a hamlet near Guelph

The "Gourock correspondence" column—of which there were very few—in the Daily Mercury (16 June 1881) relates the big event happening in the little hamlet of Gourock, just four miles west of Guelph:

The flag station here is in successful operation and return tickets to Gourock can now be had all along the line and it is probable that after July 1^st two more trains per day will be stopped at Gourock when required, and a ticket office opened, which will add very much to the convenience of those who travel.

A flag station is a place where trains stop only if a special flag is displayed.  Of course, flag stops were designed for places where stopping was expected only infrequently.  Yet, it was a big deal for a little village to appear in the timetables of the Grand Trunk Railway (Wellington, Grey & Bruce division, in this case). The ability to get on or off the train, or to ship and receive on the spot, showed that things were looking up for Gourock, as indeed they were.

To my knowledge, "Gourock" first appears in the form of a post office, with one James Mewhort designated as Postmaster.  Mr. Mewhort immigrated to Canada in 1851 and, after a "tour of observation," settled on the Waterloo Road (now Highway 124) a few miles west of Guelph (Mercury, 16 March 1882). Having been a merchant in Glasgow and Edinburgh, it was natural for Mr. Mewhort to set up a general goods store there.  Perhaps to add to his income, he also instituted the hamlet's first post office, with himself in charge.  In those days, postmasters were given much latitude in naming their locales, so it may be that Mewhort chose "Gourock" to honor the seaside Scottish town near his former abode.  

The Gourock Post Office ("P.O.") duly appears in subsequent county maps, such as the 1877 Historical Atlas, where it is marked with an "X" on the Cunningham property just below the label "Gourock P.O.":

Cunningham was Mewhort's successor as Postmaster, from 1872 to 1876.  The road next to the P.O. is today's highway 124, on the stretch between today's Whitelaw Road on the right and Wellington Road 32 on the left.  

The map also shows that the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) track between Hespeler and Guelph nearly touches the road at Gourock.  Imagine how often residents of Gourock saw the train passing and thought of how nice it would be if they did not have to travel all the way to Guelph to access it!  In 1881, the railway granted their wish.

In the 1880s, Gourock was a thriving locale in Guelph Township and neighboring Puslinch.  It had all the basic amenities of a promising rural village, as described in a Provincial Gazetteer of 1882:

GOUROCK— A small village in the township of Guelph, county of Wellington. Distant from Guelph 4 miles. Mail daily. Population about 100.

Campbell, Donald, boots and shoes
Coleman, James, gen store
Goulding, Thos., carpenter
Howitt, Alf., provincial land surveyor
Keough, James, hotel
Steele, John, blacksmith
Thomas, D. Thomas, postmaster and general store

Another "Gourock Correspondence" column in the Mercury (17 July 1884) remarks on the building boom that had struck the village, in the form of several new and larger barns on farms in the vicinity.  One barn of note was the new barn for Mr. James Keough on the Snelling farm, 63' x 80', a property that can be found on the map above.

Perhaps the most noted enterprise of Gourock was Alton Hall, a farm run by Harold Sorby and William McCrae.  The Sorby family were prosperous local farmers led by Harold's parents Walter and Mary.  (Some of the Sorby's property in Gourock later became Vimy Ridge Farm, first a home for convalescent soldiers home from the Great War, then for orphans of veterans, and finally for British Home Children.)  William McCrae was a local farmer (and no close relation of John McCrae, so far as I can tell).

Alton Hall Stock Farm specialized in Berkshire pigs, Plymouth Rock fowls but, most of all, Galloway and Hereford Cattle.  The "Farmer's Advocate" (June 1886, p. 169) described Sorby & McCrae's Galloway cattle as some of the choicest in Canada and published a drawing of four of the best from the herd at the Alton Hall farm in Gourock:

The pedigree and quality of each animal is lovingly described in the text.

The building in the background matches the appearance of Alton Hall in the real-photo postcard below, confirming that the drawing is accurate, perhaps derived from a photograph.  Gourock had some fine homes as well as fine cattle!

Happily, this building still stands on the south side of Highway 124, near the southern end of Wellington Road 32 north.  

Although the railway brought opportunity to Gourock it also occasionally brought trouble.  In particular, Gourock was the site of two notable train wrecks.  The first wreck occurred on 22 September 1906 and is related in detail by Thorning (2006), so I will only summarize the events here.

At about 6 a.m. that morning, the "fruit special" steamed through Hespeler on its way to Guelph.  As its name suggests, the train had the particular job of hauling fruit from St. Catherines to points across southwestern Ontario.  For uncertain reasons, it had difficulty maintaining speed and was quite late by the time it went through Hespeler on its way to the Guelph Junction station, in the Royal City's west end.  

In fact, the fruit special should have diverted to a siding at Hespeler to make way for the Number 44, a train of passengers and goods that regularly left Guelph in the direction of Galt shortly after 6 a.m.   Hearing that the fruit special had passed Hespeler, dispatcher Thomas Ryan in St. Thomas realized that a collision was imminent.  It was not possible to communicate with either train, so he wired to Guelph to send doctors to the site and to Stratford to arrange for a clean-up crew to be dispatched.

The morning was foggy, so neither engineer saw the other train until they were only two car-lengths apart at the bend at Gourock.  Engineer Thomas Farley on the No. 44 from Guelph slammed on his emergency brakes.  The crews leapt for their lives as the two trains collided at speed.  One can only imagine the sound of twisting metal and screaming jets of steam that followed.  

Engineer Farley was crushed to death in his engine.  Engineer Mark Reid and brakeman Harry Andrews of the fruit special were both badly scalded by steam, while fireman Cecil Bright soon died from extensive internal injuries.  As much of the energy of collision was absorbed by the locomotives, passengers on the No. 44 were not severely injured.

Such a horrific crash naturally brought out the shutterbugs.  One picture records the scene below on a real-photo postcard.

The photo shows people observing the removal of the locomotive 455 of the fruit special and its trailing coal tender.  Efforts to clear and re-open the track are visibly underway.

The photo below shows the tender for locomotive 299 of the No. 44 train from Guelph lying on top of its locomotive, on the far side of the prostrate locomotive 455.

(Courtesy of Wellington County Museum and Archives, A2015.106.5, ph44605.)

Here is another photo of the same scene from across the tracks.

(Courtesy of the Wellington County Museum and Archives, A.2015.106.5, ph44604.)

About this collision, Coulman (1977) relates that, "Old timers in the area can vividly remember oranges from the fruit train being strewn everywhere.  Even today, local farmers plowing their crop fields occasionally dig up remnants of this wreck."

The subsequent Coroner's inquiry laid blame on Engineer Reid and Conductor Joseph Thompson of the fruit special for not diverting to the siding at Hespeler as mandated by the Grand Trunk rules.  However, the jury also placed blame on the railway itself on two counts.  First, the GTR allowed Conductor Thompson to work for several days on end with only a few hours rest, which the company clearly expected of him.  As a result, Thompson was asleep when the fruit special passed through Hespeler.  Second, the GTR should have had a night operator at Hespeler (and elsewhere) to ensure that all trains followed safety procedures even, or especially, at night.

Gourock made the national news again when a second incident occurred on the GTR line there.  Shortly before 11 a.m. on 14 January 1909, a passenger train from Guelph Junction experienced an unusual derailment.  The rear car, containing 57 passengers, suddenly lurched from the rails, bumped along the ties, then flipped onto its side and was dragged for about a hundred yards before its coupling broke and it ground to a stop.  

The engineer stopped the rest of the train immediately, decoupled the locomotive and ran down to Hespeler to retrieve physicians to help the victims.  Happily, 19 people were injured but no one was killed.  The smoker car was turned into a rolling hospital and removed the injured to Guelph, where they received further medical attention.

Passengers recounted the experience of being hurled around the cabin amid a flurry of luggage, broken glass, and fellow passengers.  One account, in particular stands out (Hamilton Evening Times, 15 January 1909):

"That old lady there," said H.G. Moxley, of New Liskeard, and pointing to an old Scotch woman, the oldest passenger on board, "was sitting just across the aisle from me.  She was thrown on her face just at the doorway of the car.  There were two or three broken seats piled over her, so that all I could see was her foot.  When we cleared away the broken furniture that was piled over her she got up quite unhurt."  The old lady would not give her name even to the conductor.  Her ticket was for Hamilton.  She was more anxious about an old black satchel than anything else.

"What train do you want to complete your journey on?" the conductor asked her when she arrived here with a carload of injured ones.

"I want no train at all; from now on I will travel by stage," was her answer.

Clearly, they make old ladies both tough and sensible in Scotland, though her chances of finding a stage coach in 1909 were slim.  Perhaps that was the point.

As fate would have it, one of the passengers who was "shaken up" in the derailment was G.B. Ryan, owner of an expansive dry goods business and active member of many organizations for the development of Guelph.  He had been a member of the coroner's jury for the inquest on the 1906 wreck, and was a member of the Royal City's Board of Trade (Chamber of Commerce) Railways committee.  

(Mr. G.B. Ryan, Evening Mercury, 13 March 1909.)

After Ryan died 11 years later, his obituary noted that the derailment marked a turn for the worse in his state of health (Mercury, 12 June 1920):

Mr. Ryan, up to several years ago, enjoyed good health.  The first break came when a passenger train on the G.T.R. on which he was travelling, was wrecked at Gourock, and Mr. Ryan suffered a shock from which he never entirely recovered.

Gourock itself was in decline by that time.  In reminiscences of the Guelph of earlier days, Mr. Alex McKenzie, who had  been a telegraph operator in the city, recalled that (Mercury, 4 April 1922):

Gourock Post Office was a meeting place for the farmers for miles around. They called at the Post Office for their mail after their day’s work was done, and stopped late to smoke and talk.

Those good old days are gone.  Rural mail delivery and automobiles have closed up many a country post office and store.

McKenzie accurately notes what led to Gourock's demise.  Rural mail delivery meant that mail for rural addresses was delivered door-to-door from a central location.  Thus, the Guelph post office delivered mail directly to residents of Gourock.  Made redundant, the Gourock post office was closed in 1913.

Adoption of automobiles also decreased reliance on railway flag stops.  Rural residents with cars could drive at their convenience to Guelph, Hespeler, and points beyond instead of taking trains.  Instead of shopping at the local general store, they could easily drive into town to patronize the many and varied businesses there.

Like rural Canadians elsewhere, residents of Gourock initially resisted the presence of automobiles as an unwelcome intrusion of urban elites, noisy contraptions that offended the ears and frightened the horses (Mercury, 14 November 1904):

That Automobile nuisance.

To: Editor of the Mercury
Gourock, P.O.
November 14, 1904

Dear Sir—As I was driving home from church to-day, Sunday, the 12th inst., I very near had a serious runaway accident by an automobile driven by some citizen of Guelph.  In all justice and Christianity they should have waited until people attending church could get home.  There should be a law prohibiting the horrid and dangerous nuisance from the public highways.  An elderly lady in Guelph had her arm broken by the same nuisance causing her horse to run away.

Yours respectfully,
FARMER.

Antipathy towards cars in Gourock persisted for some time.  In June, 1912, Mr. B.G. Gummer reported to the Mercury that he had run over a bunch of tacks on the Waterloo Road at Gourock, placed there by some country vandal in a deliberate attempt to sabotage autoists.  Happily, Gummer experienced only a puncture and nothing worse.

In any event, as automobiles became cheaper and the government paved more roads, residents of Gourock reconsidered their attitude towards cars.  By 1920, the GTR flag stop had been discontinued and Gourock itself began to fade into the rearview mirror.  

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Train wrecks occurred with alarming frequency in the Edwardian era.  They were a favorite subject of local photographers and feature on real-photo postcards regularly.  Here are accounts of further wrecks in the Guelph area:

• Fatal derailment at Trainor's Cut, Guelph, 1907
• The wreck of the Royal City hay train