Sea swimmers have challenged the pivotal role played by Dr Richard Russell in founding Brighton as a fashionable resort.

Conventional wisdom is that more than 200 years ago, Russell persuaded people to flock to the former fishing village by persuading them sea water could be a cure for their ailments.

A group of swimmers, however, has launched a web site which says others could have set the trend, which turned the humdrum seaside village into the place to be.

They say Brighton's status as a fashionable place to hang out was formed by an intellectual and literary set headed by Fanny Burney and Hester Thrale.

People did swim but to relieve themselves from the pressures of life rather than for the sake of their health.

Fanny Burney stayed in a house at the bottom of West Street and her diary records how people went swimming in the sea.

The web site says in the 19th Century a small group of North Street tradesmen decided to learn to swim in the sea in the shared belief that, by doing so, they would come to understand how to make the most of themselves.

In 1860 they founded Brighton Swimming Club.

Henry Thrale, a London brewer and MP and his wife, Hester, used to visit Brighton for the bathing season.

The web site says: "The story of sea bathing has been distorted and falsified by the prominence given to Dr Richard Russell and his work on diseases of the glands."

Authors say the medical profession was not held in high regard in Dr Russell's time and evidence that Brighton's 18th Century sea bathers were not in the water primarily for the sake of their health is provided by a letter from Fanny Burney to Hester Thrale in 1780 - 20 years after Dr Russell.

Burney wrote: "You give me nothing but good News about my master and that delights me very sincerely but I can see that you are not quite Comf. yourself, - why have you this Cold, & Headach?

"Have you gone imprudently into the sea? I mean without taking counsel with Nurse Tibson?

Burney at first found going in the sea frightening but later said of an early morning dip taken in Brighton in late November that "it brought nothing but animation and vigour."

Charles Dickens also illustrated this in his novel Dombey And Son. He also came to Brighton in order to benefit from the animation that sea bathing gave him.

The web site www.brightonseabathing.org has been created by Andrew Remedios, David Sawyers and Henry Law.

Mr Sawyers is a retired cultural historian and Mr Remedios heads the local drugs dependency unit.

Mr Law, a retired planning officer, said: "Far too much prominence has been given to Dr Russell and his part in the history of Brighton. It is really a myth."

People went swimming not for their health but for the challenge of braving the sea.

Mr Law, of Queen's Gardens, Brighton, said: "I went in the sea today and it was really rather too big but I was glad that I did it."

He and the other sea swimmers go in most days, including Christmas Day.

Mr Sawyers said doctors and surgeons were not well regarded by society at that time.

The impact of the cold water and the challenge of being in the waves was much more important than the sea water cure.

He said Fanny Burney, who had what would now be called some form of learning difficulty, was able to conquer her shyness through sea bathing.

Dr Samuel Johnson, who visited the Thrales several times, also went into the sea off Brighton.

He was delighted when a bathing attendant told him he must have been a stout-hearted fellow in his youth.

Biographer James Boswell alludes to this and there is also a mention of swimming in the sea in Dr Johnson's novel Rasselas.

Mr Sawyers said: "People can get more out of sea bathing than they can possible imagine.

"It helps them believe in what they can do and I find it is the way in which one can be oneself."

Dr Russell, a Lewes physician, sent sick people to Brighton to undertake what he called the sea water cure.

He found so many people did this to their benefit that he decided to move to the coast and write his best-selling book on the benefits of sea bathing.

Historian Dr Clifford Musgrave, in his book Life In Brighton, said Dr Russell invented the seaside and saw Brighton at the dawn of its golden age.

A memorial plaque to Dr Russell on the Royal Albion Hotel, site of his house, says: "If you seek his monument, look around."