Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Lifesaving club
Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club, 1911. TRM Collection K1053.In the early 1900s Australians’ love of the water led to the formation of the first surf life saving clubs in the world and the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club was the forerunner of the surf life saving movement in Queensland. The Club’s story begins…with dentistry.
Sydney Dentist and Bondi Baths Life Saving Club member, Harold Bennet, visited the Tweed regularly in the early 1900s to offer his dental services to local residents.
On one of his visits in 1908, Harold brought with him an old surf life saving line and belt provided by the Bondi Baths Life Saving Club. This was specifically for the purpose of forming a surf life saving club in the Tweed Coolangatta area. The idea enthused local surfers and bathers and men immediately got to work training with the equipment. An official visit by a team from the Bondi Club later that year provided more education and the opportunity to purchase a professional surf reel, line, and belt. Efforts to formalise the creation of a club began in earnest.
The Tweed Heads Surf and Life Saving Club was established formally in 1909 to patrol Greenmount Beach. In 1911 it was renamed the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club (TH&CSLSC). Charles Morley was the inaugural President and the club had the official privilege of being the first surf life saving club in Queensland. A clubhouse was built at Greenmount Beach the same year. As the life saving movement grew the Club assisted many new clubs such as Kirra, Cudgen Headland, Fingal and Bilinga by loaning instructors and gear to help them through their formative years.
Surf carnival flyer
According to newspaper reports, the official opening of the 1935 season saw between 5000 and 6000 spectators on Greenmount beach, including up to 3000 who had come from Brisbane and Ipswich on trains.
Five surf life saving teams took part in the march past, and the Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Club were awarded first place for this event.
Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving flyer advertising the opening of the 1935 season on Greenmount Beach. Donated by Peter Winter. TRM Collection TH2004.280.
Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club Surf Reel
This surf reel was used by the Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club (TH&CSLSC) for rescues and competitions from the 1940s to the 1980s. The reel allowed a lifesaver, wearing a belt with a rope attached, to reach a distressed swimmer. Previous equipment was crude; a simple coil of rope attached to a pole in the sand.
Foundation members of the Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club, John Bond, Lyster Ormsby and Percy Flynn collaborated to design the first rescue reel. They built a model with two bobby pins and a cotton reel. The first full-size reel was built by Sgt John Bond of Victoria Barracks in Paddington and was improved on in the same year by Sydney coachbuilder GH Olding, whose final design was used until 1993. Reels were in use on Bondi Beach from 1907.
This TH&CSLSC reel was moved up and down Greenmount beach as required. Reels were also used at surf carnival competitions, and as part of the test for the Bronze Medallion, the qualification for becoming a fully-fledged surf lifesaver.
Surf lifesaving rescue methods were pioneered in Australia and adopted throughout the world. Today the techniques are different, and the equipment more sophisticated, but the members are still the same keen young people willing to sacrifice their spare time for the privilege of protecting lives on the beach and in the ocean.
THCSLSC surf reel. Donated by Peter Fydler.TRM Collection TH2003.66.
Surf Life Saving Caps
The cap on the left is in the official colours of the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club, while the cap on the right is the standard cap worn by all beach patrol lifesavers in Australia.
Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club cap. Donated by Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club. TRM Collection TH1999.3.
Video of Surf Life Saving Carnivals
Beach Patrol surf life saving cap. Donor unknown. TRM Collection TH2004.287.
This footage shows surf life saving carnivals held at Greenmount and Kirra beaches in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The footage was filmed by Charles Simpson and was donated to the Museum by his family in 2014.
Video footage. Donated by David Simpson. TRM Collection MUS2014.36.