1914 - 1983

Champion jitterbug dancer and award-winning photographer George Caddy documented life at Bondi in the 1930s in a remarkable set of images unearthed and exhibited at the State Library of NSW in 2009. His archive provides a unique insight into life at the beach and the art of beachobatics practised by gymnasts on the sand.

Fifteen-year-old Caddy moved from Melbourne to Bennett Street in Bondi with his family in 1929, just before the Great Depression. In 1932, Caddy’s unemployed printer father walked out, leaving his wife Ellen, George and his sister, Vida. By 1936 Caddy had a job as a paper-pattern cutter for the Australian Home Journal magazine in the city.

From an early age he had an interest in photography and documented Bondi for 10 years with his keen eye and modernist sensibilities. His striking black and white images of gymnasts, local bathers, lifesavers and leisure-seekers offer a unique insight into life at Bondi and the rise of Australian beach culture.

His beachobatics photographs include gymnasts and acrobats from Waverley’s Graham Men’s Gym Club (later Graham’s Ladies’ and Men’s Club) and the legendary strongman Wal Balmus, known for his gravity-defying hand-balancing acrobatics. The group often created intricate pyramids of up to 10 people. The photographs reveal that today’s health trends had early roots at Bondi.

Caddy was also a champion jitterbug dancer, taking his wind-up gramophone to Bondi and dance dancing the days and nights away at the beach and the Trocadero.

During World War II, Caddy was stationed in near Brisbane as a gunner in a heavy anti-aircraft battery. It appears Caddy gave up jitterbug dancing and beachobatic photography after the war. He married Betty York in 1943, and had his son, Paul, in 1944. Caddy died in Maroubra in 1983.

His archive was almost lost after his death, until his son uncovered a box of 290 negatives that had remained untouched for years. The well-preserved time capsule of artistically and historically significant images formed the basis of the ‘Bondi Jitterbug’ exhibition at the State Library.

Images courtesy State Library of New South Wales, courtesy Paul Caddy.