Summary
Personal
Early Life
Mercedes Gleitze was born on the 18th November 1900 in Brighton, on the south coast of England, the youngest of three daughters of German economic immigrants Anna and Heinrich Gleitze. She spent her childhood partly in Brighton and partly with her grandparents in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, and was educated in both countries - at the East Hove Higher Grade School in Brighton, and the Maria Stern Convent School in Nördlingen.
Marital Details
On 9 August 1930, at St Paul's Roman Catholic Church, Dover, Mercedes (whose occupation was recorded as a professional swimmer) married Patrick Joseph Carey (1904-1983) from Dublin, a sheet metal worker and later a technical representative. They had three children – two daughters and a son.
Retirement from Sport
Mercedes carried out her last swimming event in 1933 and eventually settled down in suburban northwest London, retiring into obscurity as a housewife and mother to three children.
Life Span
Despite chronic ill health from her middle years onwards, Mercedes lived a long life, happily getting to know her five grandchildren, before passing away on 9th February 1981.
In the early 1920s, whilst working as a bilingual secretary in Westminster, Mercedes spent her Sundays training in the Thames to fulfil a desire to become a long-distance swimmer. During her summer holiday period she travelled to Folkestone on the Kent coast to practice sea swimming.
Her initial objective was to swim across the English Channel. However, in 1923 she first set her standard as an open water swimmer when she challenged and broke the British Ladies' Record for Thames Swimming (10 hrs 45 mins), and in July 1927 she completed the 120-mile course (in stages) from London’s Westminster Bridge, down the Thames and around the headland to Folkestone.
Mercedes achieved her primary ambition on the 7th October 1927 when, on her eighth formal attempt. she became the first British woman to swim the English Channel, from France to England, in 15 hours 15 minutes. She had given up office work three months earlier in order to train full time in Folkestone, living on her savings, and her success enabled her to launch her career as a professional long distance swimmer.
Alongside open water swims, Mercedes performed a series of endurance swims in which she extended the British record from 26 hours to 47 hours. These latter swims were held in municipal indoor pools in Britain and abroad, and she was supported by the community- singing of the thousands of people who attended her performances. It was the fees she earned from these endurance swims that enabled her to build up her charitable trust fund – income from the open water swims being sporadic, sometimes only covering expenses. .
Mercedes retired from swimming in 1933 and thereafter lived a reclusive life as a housewife and mother to her three children.
Swimming Career
