Why are there so many NSW ocean baths?

Along the NSW coast, there have long been coastal communities that valued sea bathing and water swimming in an environment that was safer than the surf beaches. The NSW population centres grew up around coastal ports and jetties that shipped timber, dairy products, coal, blue metal and fish to Sydney. The coal and steel cities of Newcastle and Wollongong were sited on the coast. The coastal strip from Newcastle south to Sydney and Wollongong is still home to most of the NSW population.

Sydney expanded to include seaside suburbs, sometimes well served by public transport.  Adequate leisure and prosperity enabled even people living away from the ocean to take regular beach holidays at centres serviced by ferries and coastal steamers, trams, trains, buses and later on roads good enough for private cars. Ocean baths served the needs of coastal residents and holiday visitors from the inland areas, especially when there were few alternative public swimming pools.

The common prerequisites for a rock baths appear to include:
- A supply of rocks, or rocky headland with a rock platform
(Geomorphologically, the coast of NSW is relatively young and most of the NSW coast meets the requirement for rocky headlands. While the long sand beaches of the Shoalhaven Bight and northern NSW offer no suitable sites for rockbaths, the NSW coast does not have the coral reefs or sandy islands that shelter much of the Queensland coast.),
- A site on the less windy end of a beach,
- a site easily accessible to a community, preferably on foot or by public transport as well as by car,
- A pre-1970 community of year-round residents, day trippers, weekenders, holiday campers or communities with all these elements plus a desire for a convenient and safe bathing/swimming facility,
- A community  prepared to help construct the pool by voluntary work, fundraising or by exerting pressure on local, state, federal or colonial governments to fund or perform the work, perhaps as an employment project,
- Presence of pressure groups such surf clubs, schools or business groups or a council committed to development of ocean baths, and
- Local community traditions of pool building and knowledge of all the existing rock baths.

The reasons why people wanted ocean baths include:

- safety
(Prior to widespread adoption of shark netting, the rock baths offered less risk of a close encounter with sharks than the ocean beaches. The baths offered a safer environment than the surf at many popular beaches, an important consideration given the dangerous surf, fear of sharks and the limited swimming skills of men, women and children in pre-1900 NSW seaside communities and for many of the migrants who arrived in Australia after WWII.),

- legality
(While restrictive regulation and legislation was in force from the 1880s to 1903, bathing in enclosed ocean baths was legal when daylight bathing was not.),

- hygiene
 (When few houses had their own bathrooms, saltwater baths offered an attractive way to feel clean. This was an especially important consideration in mining communities around Newcastle and the Illawarra.),

- sport and competition,

- business considerations
(Wylies is one the few baths created as a private enterprise.), and

- tourism
(Baths at Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama, Werri Beach and Forster were created to attract and retain tourists.).

As many of the reasons remain valid and as there are still many suitable sites for ocean baths, perhaps the more interesting question is 'Why are ocean baths no longer being created at new sites in NSW?'

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