1889 - 1956

Australian Olympic swimmer Fanny (Sarah Frances) Durack was born on 27 October 1889 in Elizabeth Street, Sydney and was the third daughter and sixth child of Irish parents Thomas Durack, a publican and relation of pastoral pioneer Patrick Durack, and Mary, née Mason. She learnt to swim at the Coogee Aquarium and Swimming Baths and trained in breaststroke, the only swimming style that women were allowed to use to compete in women’s championships. In 1906, she won her first state title while still at school. She later adopted the ‘trudgen’ stroke and by 1911 had changed to the ‘Australian Crawl’.

Although the New South Wales Ladies’ Amateur Swimming Association had forbidden women from swimming in competitions at which men would be present, 22-year-old Fanny had been so successful and public debate so robust that she got to compete at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden. The rule was reversed due to debate among the clubs. The argument had been that another swimmer shouldn’t be included to compete in only one event, but the wife of Australian show-business entrepreneur Hugh ‘Huge Deal’ McIntosh launched a successful fundraising appeal.

Fanny sailed for Sweden via London, in which she trained by swimming only half a mile a day. On 15 July at the Stockholm Games, she swam a ‘100-metres freestyle’ heat in 1 minute, 19.8 seconds, breaking the world record, winning the gold medal in the only individual event for women, and beating fellow Australian Wilhelmina (Mina) Wylie.

Her Olympic success led to European and US tours for her and Mina, but her career was dogged by controversy. In 1918, the two Aussies arrived in the US not having been officially sanctioned to tour there, and found that the Amateur Swimming Union of Australia had banned them from appearing.

The following year, America’s Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) threatened to suspend the two women’s ‘amateur’ status when they refused to swim till their manager’s expenses had been paid. After American swimmers defeated her in two carnivals, Fanny determinedly tried to limit her appearances till she’d had a chance to practise the new ‘American Crawl’. In Chicago, after officials ordered her to swim, she jumped the starter’s gun, swam half a length and got out of the pool, whereby the tour was curtailed.

A week before the Australian swimming team left for the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, Fanny had an appendectomy, followed by typhoid fever and pneumonia, and had to withdraw. Between 1912 and 1918, she’d broken 12 world records, including swims of 100 yards (91 metres) in 1 minute, 6 seconds; 100 metres in 1 minute, 16.2 seconds; and 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) in 26 minutes, 8 seconds.

Promotion of women’s swimming was directly improved because of Fanny’s successes. She cut a unique and formidable figure due to her determination and self-will, along with her long, dark hair and “no symptom of ropes of athletic muscles”. The Americans honoured her by inducting her into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and presenting her with a Helms Award, since renamed the World Trophy.

Fanny retired from competitive swimming in early January 1921 and on the 22nd of that month married Bernard Gately, a horse trainer, at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. She went on to devote herself to coaching young children in swimming and to join the executive of the New South Wales Women’s Amateur Swimming Association, which in 1945 made her a life member. She died of cancer at her Stanmore home on 20 March 1956 and was buried in Waverley Cemetery’s Catholic section. Her brother Frank bequeathed her Olympic gold medal to the Commonwealth Government, and ever since, it’s been on display at the National Library of Australia, in Canberra.

Courtesy Waverley Library Local Studies Collection, State Library of New South Wales, Randwick Library Local Studies Collection and the National Centre of Biography at the Australian National University.

Fanny Durack features in the podcast Famous and Forgotten - Fanny Durack. 'It's not ladylike!'