Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2024)
copyright © National Portrait Gallery Mercedes Gleitze
by Underwood & Underwood,vintage print, 26 June 1928
Given by Terence Pepper, 2012 |
copyright © D. Sharp The Blue Plaque at 124 Freshfield Road, Brighton |
In 2022 a blue plaque was unveiled at the house where she was born on 18 November 1900 in Freshfield Road, Brighton. Then a film was made about her story called Vindication Swim, and it will come to cinemas in March 2024 in co-ordination with International Women’s Day on 8 March.
But nowhere is her connection with Hove mentioned. It is of vital importance too because it was at Hove that she learned how to swim. Part of this omission is due to the good lady herself who stated that she first learnt to swim at Brighton. But she was using ‘Brighton’ as a generic term for the whole area.
Her parents, Heinrich and Anna
Gleitze, were German, and when Mercedes was the tender age of
eighteen months, she was sent to Germany to be brought up by her
grandparents at Hertzogenaurach, and she did not return to England
until she was ten years old.
copyright © D. Sharp Shown in the centre is 36 Lower Market Street, Hove, the home of the Gleitze family. The house was just over a half mile from Mercedes' East Hove School in Davigdor Road. |
Heinrich had found work at the Hotel Metropole as a baker. German hotel staff were highly valued because they had received formal training in their home country. Indeed it is perhaps surprising that there was a thriving German community in Brighton and Hove before the First World War, and for instance, in 1911 there were no less than 295 German nationals employed in Brighton and Hove's many hotels.
There was another interlude in
Germany because Mercedes and her sisters were sent back in 1912 to
enter a convent school but during the holidays they went to stay with
their grandparents where Mercedes developed a serious illness. The
German doctor recommended a speedy return to England because she was
obviously missing the sea air and the Gleitze family home in Lower Market Street was only 200 yards from Hove's seafront.
copyright © Royal
Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove An Edwardian view of Hove Beach, which Mercedes would have known well while living at Lower Market Street. |
When war broke out there were problems, and some Germans, including Heinrich, spent the war years in the Isle of Man. The three young girls were British nationals, and they could have stayed put, but Mrs Gleitze was anxious to return to Germany.
THE HOVE SCHOOL (where Mercedes learnt to swim)
copyright © Royal
Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove East Hove Schools in Davigdor Road, Hove, half a mile from Mercedes's Lower Market Street home. (the school was demolished in the early 1990s) |
copyright © National Library of Australia The above is a part of an article written by Mercedes for the Rockhampton Evening News on 5 February 1941, she uses ‘Brighton’ as a generic term for the whole area, Mercedes actually lived and attended a school in the neighboring Borough of Hove. |
Gleitz was taught to swim by the redoubtable Miss Mary Edgar who was never known to don a swimming costume herself, and instead shouted instructions from the side. Gleitz took to water like the proverbial duck, and indeed open water swimming became her passion, and her courage and powers of endurance were much admired.
Mercedes was at the Hove School
for two years but at some stage before August 1914 returned to Germany. However, by
April 1918 she was so homesick for England that she embarked on a
desperate bid to return to these shores on her own but after reaching Holland, her mother found Mercedes and returned her back to their Bavarian home. Mercedes eventually
succeeded in moving back to England in 1921 and was employed as a typist for a German Shipping Company in London which she later gave up to become a full time long distance swimmer.
An Astonishing Achievement
Gleitz was the first English woman to swim across the English Channel on 7 October 1927, and it was her eighth attempt at the feat; she was also not the first person to complete the swim because twelve others had done it, including two American women.
The
Times did
manage to publish Gleitz’s outstanding feat on 8 October but the
unfortunate Sussex
Daily News had
to wait because up until 10.30.p.m. the previous night the newsmen
had heard nothing since the afternoon message by carrier pigeon. The
vital carrier pigeon was delayed by thick fog and took six hours to
cross the Channel.
copyright © National Library of Australia The Herald (Melbourne) 8 October 1927. |
She left Gris Nez at 2.55.a.m. and her feet touched the chalk rocks between South Foreland and St Margaret’s Bay at 6.10.p.m. After touching land she collapsed into the arms of her trainer Mr G. H. Allan, and the pilot. She was unconscious for nearly two hours in the cabin of the fishing boat. Her trainer described her historic swim as the pluckiest thing he had ever witnessed. When they arrived at Folkestone, they were greeted by a large, cheering crowd.
On 28 October 1927 Gleitz paid a visit to the Hove School, and all the children lined up in the hall to greet her.
Of course her old headmistress, Miss Florence Yeomanson, was delighted at her success, and said,‘I can quite imagine her accomplishing the feat for she was always determined. If she made up her mind a thing ought to be done, she would do everything she could to carry it through.’
Miss Yeomanson
copyright © Royal
Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove Mercedes Gleitze, c1928 |
It is interesting to note that Gleitze recognised her debt to her school because she kept in touch with Miss Yeomanson. In her biography of her mother In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitz, her daughter, Doloranda Pember, quoted one such letter dated 18 June 1928. But she described the recipient as a ‘teacher friend’ and not as her former headmistress.
Miss Florence Yeomanson was the
head of the school from 1905 to 1937. She started off as a pupil
teacher at the Ellen Street Schools at Hove, and in 1891 she came
second in order of merit of all the female pupil teachers in Brighton
and Hove. In 1927 the Revd P. Cazelet wrote a report about scripture
teaching and had this to say ‘Anyone who knows of Miss Yeomanson’s
great power as a teacher and her great spiritual influence over her
girls will not need to be told that her lessons were models of what
such lessons should be.’
Miss Florence Yeomanson, was a member of the Hove Swimming Club and the daughter of William Yeomanson the Stationmaster of Hove Railway Station. Her brother Augustus Yeomanson served as the Honorary Secretary of Hove Swimming Club at the Medina Baths and later in 1920, he was elected the President of the Sussex County Amateur Swimming Association.
It is possible that Gleitze was
inspired by the Christian ethics imparted by Miss Yeomanson because
it is a fact that Gleitze was greatly concerned about the welfare of
homeless people. Right from the start of her swimming career she was
putting prize money and earnings aside because she wanted to be able
to buy a house so that such unfortunate souls could have a roof over
their heads. She succeeded, and indeed her charity remains in
operation to this day.
Difficulties
However, after the elation of the
Channel swim there came the downside when officials began to question
the veracity of Gleitze’s achievement because it was not properly
recorded and supervised. Just two weeks later on 21 October 1927
Gleitz undertook an official ‘vindication’ swim, and this time
she was accompanied by two small boats and a tug full of journalists
who sang songs to encourage her. Gleitz was in the water for eleven
hours, but was obliged to give up just seven miles from Dover.
copyright © National Library of Australia The Southern Districts Advocate (Western Australia) 23 October 1927 |
When Gleitze returned to her flat after the vindication swim, she found it had been broken into, and her newly-presented leather travelling case had been stolen. It contained important documents and items relating to her Channel swimming activities.
Career and Married Life
copyright © National Portrait Gallery Patrick Joseph Carey & Mercedes Gleitze
1930, NPG x198513
|
Her married life could not be more of a contrast because she devoted herself to her family. She became a virtual recluse, and she kept her identity a strict secret from neighbours, and even her children had no idea of how famous their mother had been in her youth. But all that swimming took its toll in the end, and she ended up suffering badly from arthritis in both knees, which made her house-bound. She was delighted when a TV set was placed in her bedroom because it allowed her to keep up with events, and she was particularly interested in the moon-landings.
Sources
Encyclopaedia of Hove and
Portslade
National Portrait Gallery
Pember,
Doloranda In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze (2019)
(All
profits from the sale of this biography will go to the Mercedes' Charity, although her Mercedes Gleitze Homes for Destitute Men and Women were destroyed in November
1940 by enemy action, the Mercedes’ trust fund is still active today,
re-named The Mercedes Gleitze Relief in Need Charity - Charity number 264713-44)
Rockhampton Evening News (5 February 1931)
Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
Sussex Daily News
October 1927
The Southern Districts Advocate (Western Australia) 23 October 1927
The Herald (Melbourne) 8 October 1927
The Times October
1927
The Queenslander (Australia) 31 May 1928
The Keep
Davigdor Road School Log Book – ESC 101/1/5 – Girls – 1912 to November 1945
Additional research by D. Sharp
Copyright © J.Middleton 2024
Page layout & design by D. Sharp