Pyrmont’s Icon - The Baths

Once in a while something will happen to a community which generates so much feeling that the event enters into the mythology of the place, and generations on it will still be referred to as significant in explaining the meaning of their lives. In Pyrmont, such an event had been the demolition of the swimming baths at the end of Point Street.

The Pyrmont Baths, built in the early 1870’s at the end of steep steps leading from Pont Street, were very important to the people of the peninsula where recreational facilities were scarce. In 1888 the industrial firm of Goodlet and Smith wanted to lease the baths. Had this lease been granted, the one precious recreational amenity on the peninsula would have disappeared. This request was indicative of industrial attitudes towards the people of the peninsula.

In 1900 when all the waterfront was resumed by the Sydney Harbour Trust, the council’s baths were leased back to them. In 1902 the City Council enlarged and refurbished the baths. As one bather commented “You could see the bottom, clear as you like. We used to catch yabbies in that pool.”

In 1927 the Trust’s rebuilding activities began to close in on Pyrmont Point. They requested that the council surrender its lease on the baths as the trust intended to road and build more wharves. The Labor Council began negotiating for compensation and for an alternative site.
“ It is all we have in the way of recreation” pleaded A. Alexander on behalf of the Pyrmont Parents and Citizens Association. The council lease was renewed in April 1928, but only for one year.

These events held all the ingredients necessary to elevate the Pyrmont Baths into a symbol of all the anger and all the class antagonism that the people of this area felt.

But the baths were not demolished in 1929. According to legend, James Watkinson, a champion athlete, saved the baths by using his influence with one of the Harbour Trust Commissioners.

In 1946 the baths were closed and demolished, amidst angry resentment of the State Government’s ‘betrayal’ of some of its most loyal followers. Half a century on, in 1993, when one life-long resident and untiring worker for the Labor Party was asked to account for the decline in support for the Party, she gave a long and considered answer which ranged over many perceived betrayals, but to top the list, first mentioned and several times referred to was ‘they got rid of the baths’. It is a symbol of the ‘disgrace’ of Pyrmont.

Source: Fitzgerald, S. & Golder, H. (1994) Pyrmont & Ultimo Under Siege. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger Pty. Ltd.