The Home of UK Surf History
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The following articles are listed in order of the date they were added to the archives, newest first.
added to the surf history archives on Dec 06, 2011
Princess Victoria Ka’iulani Cleghorn is included in British surfing history, because she was half Scottish – half Hawaiian, and an expert surfer. She lived in England in 1892 as part of her education, spending a considerable amount of time in Brighton and also visiting the Channel Islands. Did she surf while living in the UK? ……»
added to the surf history archives on Dec 06, 2011
The British Museum in London has this beautiful original Hawaiian surfboard from the 1800s in its collection. The board was donated along with other items of Oceanian material by Alfred Fowler in 1893, it is inscribed “surf swimming board given to the donor (Fowler) by the King of Hawaii” – this was King David Kalakaua ……»
added to the surf history archives on Nov 15, 2011
Rod Sumpter was born in Watford in 1947 and raised from the age of five in Australia where he grew up surfing. He came back to England as a teenage surf star in 1965 and a year later decided to stay in the UK and still lives in Cornwall today. This photo, taken and donated ……»
added to the surf history archives on Oct 25, 2011
Octogenarian James Millar from Wrafton, North Devon, sadly passed away on October 18th 2011 whilst on holiday in the Scilly Isles. James told the Museum of British Surfing his memories of happy days surfing on his local North Devon beaches Saunton & Croyde with his brother John (in this photo John is holding the board) ……»
added to the surf history archives on Sep 22, 2011
At the end of World War 2, surfers in the Royal Australian Air Force serving in England took over a Newquay hotel for a period of extended leave and organised a full-on “surf carnival”. It was mainly an opportunity to demonstrate their surf life saving skills, but a crowd of an estimated 5,000 people turned ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jul 28, 2011
The Prince of Wales, Edward Windsor learned to surf with the great Duke Kahanamoku in Hawaii in 1920. On his first trip to Waikiki in April he was taken out in an outrigger canoe, then later in the day was coaxed into standing up on a surfboard to ride the waves for the first time ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jul 27, 2011
Acclaimed crime writer Agatha Christie spent her teenage years on the south coast of England around Torquay where sea bathing was a common practice in the early 1900s – but in 1922 she would become one of Britain’s earliest “stand-up” surfers. “In fact, on a rough day I enjoyed the sea even more,” she said. ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jun 30, 2011
Around 1929 Lewis Rosenberg and a group of friends saw a newsreel showing Australians surfing standing up on their surfboards – it was a moment of inspiration that changed their lives. This close-knit group of Jewish immigrants, who lived in London, had been riding their four-foot long wooden bodyboards on British beaches for some time. ……»
added to the surf history archives on Dec 04, 2010
This remarkable photograph was taken by the Millar family while on holiday in North Devon in August 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of World War Two. It shows cars parked on the beach at Croyde right up to the waters edge & people in the background surfing on their wooden bellyboards, with a decent ……»
added to the surf history archives on Aug 13, 2010
In 1928 Australian champion surfer & swimmer Charles ‘Snow’ McAllister gave a demonstration of surfing in England on his way home from the Olympics in Amsterdam where he’d been competing. Although people had been surfing in Britain for a while, it had mostly been done prone on short wooden surfboards – but our brother from ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jun 02, 2010
When Captain James Cook’s journals were published in 1784 they were a sell-out. It’s difficult to imagine in today’s times of instant online & TV news, but back then these books were at the cutting edge – telling tales of adventure, of strange lands and of “strange diversions” as surfing was described. One of the ……»
added to the surf history archives on May 31, 2010
Californian Tom Blake has widely been credited with “inventing” the surfboard fin in 1935 as he searched for ways to make boards perform better. But was he the first? Read on… In 1821 Captain Thomas Raine anchored his ship Surrey off the Pitcairn Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. On land was one John Adams, ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jan 01, 1970
During his first ‘voyage of discovery’ Captain James Cook sailed to Tahiti in 1769, and saw the locals out surfing. On his ship Endeavour moored in Matavai Bay was the talented botanist Joseph Banks, who wrote about the spectacle of wave riding for fun in his diaries – it’s the earliest written description of surfing ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jan 01, 1970
“These pieces of wood are so nicely balanced that the most expert of our people at swimming could not keep upon them half a minute without rolling off.” In February 1779 these words from the journal of George Gilbert, midshipman on Captain James Cook’s ship Resolution, confirmed what we had long suspected and hoped for ……»
added to the surf history archives on Jan 01, 1970
Cook arrived back in Tahiti in 1777 on his ship Resolution, shortly before he would make first contact with Hawaii. They again saw surfing and this time the ship’s surgeon William Anderson put quill to parchment and wrote: “He went out from the shore till he was near the place where the swell begins to ……»