| Victoria Baths Facts | - In 1927 Margery Hinton began training at Victoria Baths. In 1928 at the age of 13 years and one month she travelled to Amsterdam to become the youngest British competitor ever to swim in the Olympic Games. A record that stands unbroken today.
- Victoria Baths swimmer John Beresford won the 100 metres backstroke at Magdeburg in Germany in 1934, famously upsetting Hitler who had commissioned a magnificent bronze Eagle Trophy on the assumption that German favourite, Ernst Küppers, would win.
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Now the history of the Baths is being told in a new book. Victoria Baths came to the attention of the nation in 2003 when it won the first series of the BBC TV programme Restoration. But for many years before that it held a special place in the lives of local people who had, at some time, used one of its three pools as most Manchester schools used to hold their annual swimming gala there. Author Prue Williams fell in love with Victoria Baths when she visited in 1998 and decided to research the history of the building. The story begins with the public health debates of the 19th century which lead to the decision in 1897 to build a baths to serve the Longsight, St Luke’s and Rusholme wards. It was decided that a site at High Street (now Hathersage Road) would be the most central to the three wards and in 1899 the land was purchased for £750. Apart from the fabric of the building the book tells of those who used the facilities. Sunny Lowy was seven when she first swam at Victoria Baths and from the beginning showed an ability and determination to swim significant lengths. Sunny had a burning ambition to swim the English Channel and on 28 August 1933 she succeeded, taking 15 hours and 41 minutes.  | | Males Second Class Pool in 1928 |
The story of Victoria Baths is one that will fascinate those who used the Baths as well as those who followed its campaign to win the BBC's Restoration fund. The book, which has a forward by TV presenter Griff Rhys Jones, is full of photographs showing the baths in their glory days with pictures of excited youngsters, the Bath's wash-rooms and Aeratone Therapeutic Bath. What we have here is a wonderfully detailed history of Victoria Baths that will rekindle the desire to see the Turkish Baths restored and leave us hoping that one day the voices of excited children will echo round beautiful green the tiled walls again. Victoria Baths: Manchester’s Water Palace is published by Spire Books and priced at £14.95 (available post-free from the Friends of Victoria Baths, Studio 20, Imex Business Park, Hamilton Road, Longsight, Manchester, M13 0PD. | 
