Miss Annette Kellerman began winning swimming championships when she was fifteen years of age. She is now twenty-four, and, although she has not yet succeeded in her great ambition to emulate Captain Webb's feat of swimming the Channel, many of her records have never been excelled, even by man. Born in New South Wales in 1886, she first distinguished herself in the aquatic world by easily winning the 100 and 440 yards and 1 mile ladies' championship of that colony fifteen years later. In 1904' Miss Kellerman swam 2 1/4 miles in the Yarra river in 46 1/2 minutes, and the following year she swam 10 1/4 miles in 4 hours 52 minutes. In each instance Miss Keller-man had very little assistance from the tide, and her times remain records for Australia to this day, for they have never been beaten either by male or female. Shortly after her arrival in England, in 1905, Miss Kellerman swam from Putney Bridge to Blackwall, a distance of 13 miles 550 yards, in 3 hours 54 minutes - a feat which compares more than favourably with the very best performances in Thames waters.

Miss Annette Kellerman Fouiskam & Barfield