The Halliwick Concept was developed by a swimming instructor and engineer of hydromechanics, James McMillan MBE, and his wife, Phyl McMillan MBE in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Since then, the Concept has gradually spread out over the world. The International Halliwick Association (the IHA) was established in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland, in 1994 to support this.

For more information about the Late James McMillian MBE, and how the Halliwick Concept was initially developed, head to The Halliwick Story, written by the Late Phyl McMillian MBE. It also includes a post-script written by the Late Dr Joan Martin MBE, all about a fantastic channel swim that Halliwick swimmers completed in the 1970s! 

The fundamentals of Halliwick swimming are set out in the Halliwick Concept. For more information on this, take a look at the Halliwick Concept 2010 Paper (Updated 2015), written by the IHA Education and Research Committee 2010 (Ann Gresswell, Aoife Ní Mhuirí, Bodil Føns Knudsen, Jean-Pierre Maes, Mauricio Koprowski Garcia, Merav Hadar-Frumer and Montserrat Gutierrez Bassas).