Upsala Simsällskap

[2] The society was founded by the mathematician and astronomer Jöns Svanberg (1771–1851) together with some colleagues at the university as a way to remedy the general lack of swimming skills.

The same year the society was founded, Svanberg arranged a mock "graduation ceremony" (promotion), modelled after the academic ceremony, where he and some of his colleagues awarded themselves the master's degree (magister) and their pupils the degree of bachelor (kandidat) in swimming.

After Svanberg had temporarily left Uppsala for Stockholm, Gabriel Marklin, otherwise remembered as an eccentric scientific collector, briefly took care of the swimming school, to be succeeded for a few years by Carl Gustaf Grahl, the first professional swimming instructor in Sweden.

In the middle of the 19th century, a bath house was built and later a springboard for diving.

It actually appears to be considerably older and is described already in Underrättelser i simkonsten, a Swedish instruction book in swimming from 1839.