Weatherwatch: heatwave brings death and civil unrest

The dry and hot summer of 1911 drove Londoners to paddle in the Serpentine while, in the north, mills closed for lack of power

The long hot summer of 1911 is credited with changing fashions, with women shedding whalebone corsets and brassieres becoming the rage. Edwardian aristocrats are said to have taken up nude tennis at their country estates, although at the ever more crowded seaside resorts men and women still used bathing machines towed into the sea. The sexes were kept segregated in case any flesh was exposed.