1872 - 1948

Wally Weekes was a founding member and first club captain of the Bondi Surf & Social Lifesaving Club in 1907. Its first clubhouse was a tent erected on his land at North Bondi.

The tent was replaced by a simple one-room shed in 1911, until a new timber clubhouse and lookout tower was constructed on the beach promenade in 1920, still on his property. That year, the club was renamed the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club (NBSLSC).

Weekes’ land, among the sandhills at the northern end of the beach, far from public transport, had long attracted ‘lively young men’, some of whom would camp at weekends where Biddigal Reserve is today. They ‘surfed and liked larking about’ and helped establish the club in 1907, as much for social reasons as for lifesaving. Weekes’ land was not incorporated into Bondi Park until 1929. The brick clubhouse was not built until 1933.

Weekes was born in Surry Hills in 1872 and soon excelled at sport, becoming an amateur lightweight boxing champion aged 18. He continued boxing and became a trainer, referee and manager as well as owning and operating many successful hotels in Sydney.

Weekes’ community service included donating land to construct St Barnabas Church in North Bondi, since demolished. He also set up a Bondi branch of the Golden Brick Society, a charity that raised funds to provide ‘Christmas Cheers’ for poor children in the Eastern Suburbs.

Weekes served as president of the NBSLSC from 1916-1920 and was elected an alderman of Waverley Council in 1922. That year, a man drowned at Bondi Beach and an inquiry found the resuscitation method used was incorrect. Weekes arranged for a slow-motion film to be made of the correct method. The film was intended for exhibition only in Australia, but was used worldwide.

The rock pool in North Bondi is named after Weekes, who led the team that carved the pool out of foreshore sandstone as a safe place for children to learn to swim.

Weekes, whose address was ‘The Lawns’, Ramsgate Avenue, North Bondi, died in 1948, aged 76.

Images courtesy the Waverley Library Local Studies Collection.