William Wilson

William Wilson (1844 to 1912) was a British journalist, swimming instructor and coach, remembered as the originator of the game of water polo and as an early writer on the scientific technique of competitive swimming. While Baths Master at the Arlington Baths Club in Glasgow he drew up rules in 1877 for a team water game he called aquatic football, first played at the Bon Accord Festival on the River Dee in Aberdeen, with flags set on the shore as goals and a soft Indian rubber ball. In 1883 he published The Swimming Instructor, one of the first books to set out modern ideas of stroke efficiency, training, racing turns and water safety. The Swimming Association of Great Britain recognised the game in 1885 and framed fuller rules that grew from his rulebook and later underlay the international rules of FINA. In 1891 he wrote illustrated newspaper articles on lifesaving drills and became the first Life Governor of the Royal Lifesaving Society.