1855 - 1927

Major John Bond was born in Portland, Victoria, on 24 October 1855. He’s widely considered to be a pioneer of surf lifesaving. His family home, ‘Coleraine’, was at 41 Belgrave Street, Waverley, and he lived there till his death in 1927 at age 72. He started a Medicine degree, and although he never graduated, Bondi locals considered him to be the next-best thing to a doctor.

In the Boer War (1899–1902), John served as a warrant officer and a member of the New South Wales medical team’s first contingent, which travelled to the South African front in 1899.

When the Life Saving Society of Australia – later the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia – was established and chose Waverley as the site of its first branch, John served as a drill instructor and organised a class of about 20 gentlemen, 16 of whom completed his ‘rescue, release and resuscitation’ course. He first conducted the drills on land and later conducted them in the water at the Centennial Baths of Parramatta and Bronte Ocean Pool.

Before federation, at the request of the officer commanding the Colony of New South Wales’s Public School Cadets Corps, John gave a public display at Bronte Ocean Pool, for the information and benefit of about 300 officers and cadets. Notably, the display was the first of its kind ever held in an Australian colony. He went on to demonstrate resuscitation techniques at the Parramatta and Bronte baths, and the displays were attended by Australian parliamentary and military officials. He also co-ordinated beach-patrol squads. According to The Bulletin, “He was one of the founders of the Royal Life Saving Society, NSW, and one of the last of the fine old warrant officers who were promoted on sheer merit.”

In the armies of Commonwealth countries, warrant officers rank between staff sergeant and second lieutenant. Warrant Officer (later Major) John Bond was certainly held in high esteem by his Victoria Barracks comrades, and when the Boer War broke out in South Africa in 1899, he was assigned the task of instructing the Ambulance Corps members who went to the front. His trained squad of volunteers later formed into a permanent group that became Bronte Surf Life Saving Club.

As well as instigating resuscitation techniques as we now know them, John is recorded as having improved the newly invented surf-lifesaving reel. Several of his contemporaries claimed to have invented the ‘reel, line and belt’ method of lifesaving, but as C. Bede Maxwell stated in his 1949 book Surf: Australians against the Sea, “far better supported is the tradition, still lively in the Bondi district, that the reel as it is now known was the result of the combined planning of [John] Bond, [Lyster] Ormsby and [Percy] Flynn.”

In 1907, John was elected an officer of the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club (BSBLSC) during its first annual meeting, and two years later, according to History of Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club, 1906–1956, “it was decided to place the name of W. O. John Bond A.A.M.C. on the life membership list for valuable services rendered in the shape of instructional work.” John was the Bronte club’s drill instructor till 1912 and its vice-president from that year till his death. All his sons and daughters were champion swimmers and lifesavers.

Courtesy the Australian Boer War Memorial.