Between 1921-25, Sheffield’s Irene Gilbert won two ASA titles, and had five more podium finishes. Having won the 150 yards backstroke title in 1922 (the year she also won the inaugural Yorkshire women’s title) she added the 200 yards breaststroke title three years later. In addition, she finished second in the backstroke in 1921 and 1923, and was the 200 breast runner-up in 1922-23, and third in 1924. At the Paris Olympics that year, she competed in the 200 metres breaststroke, finishing fifth. Gilbert set many British records throughout her career and, at Rotherham Baths in June 1923, she knocked 11 seconds off the World 200 metres breaststroke record with a time of 3:20.4. It was also a European record, and both stood for nearly two years. In October 1924, again at Rotherham, she set another World and European record of 1:31.8 for the 100 breast, beating the old record by nearly two seconds, and it would be a year before the mark was lowered. Gilbert’s cousin Ivy Gill (née Smalley) was a Yorkshire 100 yards freestyle champion and in 1927 became only the second British woman to swim the English Channel from France to England, just one week after Mercedes Gleitze became the first British girl to perform the feat.
Great Britain