The “Breach Candy Swimming Club, where pink people could swim in a pool the shape of British India without fear of rubbing up against a black skin” (Rushdie 1981, 94) was the product of a colonialist mindset. As the British Empire spread, so too did the culture of exclusive clubs, first as “gentlemen's clubs”, then later as “private members’ clubs”.
With the money from the sale of the Aden Hostel for European travellers after the opening of the Suez Canal, the Europeans in Bombay decided to build a new seawater pool in 1875. The Secretary of State for India donated five acres on the Bombay shore for the swimming pool. At that time, the Breach Candy area was still largely wild and a shed was used as a bathhouse. After the turn of the century, established upper-class families built the first bungalows and mansions in the area. Over the following years, Breach Candy developed into an upscale residential area with villas and apartment buildings with sea-views. In 1927, an indoor swimming pool was installed and, in 1928, work began on the British India-shaped outdoor pool at a cost of 13 500 rupees. In 1936, the Bombay municipality lost custody while a lawsuit was settled. The newly-formed Breach Candy Swimming Bath Trust took over.
After the Byculla Club in 1833 and the Bombay Gymkhana in 1875, the Breach Candy Club was founded in 1878 as an institution of the Raj, pursuing the policy of separation between the British colonialists and the colonised Indians. “Breach Candy” was an anglicised version of the local name, but local Indians were not allowed. The British left India in 1947, but the color bar they had introduced for the Breach Candy Club remained in place until 1960. The first Indian members were only allowed 13 years after India’s independence, and to this day they are not allowed to become trust members or to vote in trustee meetings.
The history of access to sports and especially swimming facilities in the hot and humid climate of Bombay can be seen through a prism of class, race and nationality. Even clubs like the Willingdon Club (founded in 1918) and the Cricket Club of India, founded in Bombay in 1933 with the aim of overcoming racial segregation, reflect class and sectarian divisions in Bombay society. Hindus swam in the Pransukhlal Mehta Mafatlal Hindu Swimming Pool and Boat Club in Chowpatty, Parsis at Golwala Bath in Back Bay, and Europeans at the Breach Candy Swimming Bath Trust on Warden Road. All of these clubs had swimming pools, but only for the privileged, financial, and hereditary elites of Bombay.
In this colonial and segregated environment, the exile foreign social elite joined the Breach Candy Club. Members included the Weingartens (Dr. Richard Weingarten was principal medical officer of Bikaner state, while Ludwig Weingarten was the manager of a celluloid factory owned by Larson and Turbo), the Schimmels and the Thenens (Josef Schimmel was manager of Kores India Ltd., where Julius Thenen was also employed), the Klimts (Fritz Klimt was co-owner of a very successful import business) and the Langhammers (Walter Langhammer was art director of the Times of India).
The Breach Candy Club offered an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, other sports facilities such as volleyball, a restaurant, a bar and a large seaside garden where members could relax, making it a popular venue also for an older generation of exiles, where they could gather for drinks, a coffee and a chat. At family celebrations, coffee parties and afternoon gatherings, the exiles got together with others from their own culture and spoke German.
The financially potent exiles also spent most of their vacations, weekends and public holidays in this segregated social space. The club became a second “living room” for like-minded and “socially equal people”. It was also used for business matters, networking, lobbying, socialising with potential business partners, eating and drinking with future colleagues, employers, clients or co-owners of new business, art and advertising initiatives. Even today, the Breach Candy Club, the Willingdon Club and the Bombay Gymkhana form the “Big 3”, the top private clubs of Mumbai.