Edith Parnell
Born1913
Penarth
Died13 November 1938(1938-11-13) (aged 24–25)
London
OccupationJournalist
Known forYoungest person to swim across the Bristol Channel (1929)

Edith Parnell (1913 – 13 November 1938), known to friends as Bunny, was a Welsh swimmer and journalist. In 1929 she became the youngest known person to swim across the Bristol Channel.

Early life and the Bristol Channel

Edith Gertrude Parnell was the daughter of Mr and Mrs F. R. Parnell of Penarth.[1]

In 1928, Parnell was already known as a distance swimmer, supporting other young women on attempts to cross the Bristol Channel.[2] On 15 August 1929, at age 16, she became the second person to swim the Bristol Channel, swimming from Penarth to Weston-super-Mare in 10 hours, 15 minutes.[3] She remains the youngest person ever to have made the crossing.[4]

Journalism and advertising

She later became the first woman reporter for the Reuters News Agency in Paris and London, and the first woman editor of a Sunday newspaper. She was later editorial manager of Higham's advertising agency.[5] She handled publicity for Higham clients, including Coty, Imperial Chemical Industries, and the "Bread for Energy" campaign.[6] She attended a convention of the Advertising Federation in Boston in 1936, and was the only woman delegate at the convention,[7] representing the London-based Regent Advertising Club.[8] She also spoke to the Rotary Club of Montreal in 1936, on the topic "Public Relations from a Woman's Standpoint."[7]

Personal life

Parnell married the Welsh journalist Hugh Cudlipp in April 1936,[9] though the marriage was not a success. She was simultaneously in love with Tom Darlow, editor of John Bull, and kept up an affair with him.[10] She died on 13 November 1938,[11] aged 25 years, after complications from a Caesarean section in a Harley Street clinic.[10]

Parnell's story partly inspired the novel Wonder Girls (2012) by Catherine Jones.[12][13]

References

  1. ↑ Western Mail, 14 November 1938, p.12
  2. ↑ "Swimming in 20Ft. Waves; 'Splendid Failure'". The Guardian. 11 September 1928. p. 11. Retrieved 29 July 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "Bristol Channel Swum by Girl". The Guardian. 16 August 1929. p. 5. Retrieved 29 July 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ The Bristol Channel, Outdoors Swimming Society. Accessed 4 August 2019.
  5. ↑ Penarth Women's Trail: A trail featuring 15 famous Penarth women. Accessed 4 August 2019.
  6. ↑ "British Ad Linage Rises". The New York Times. 26 June 1936. p. 37 – via ProQuest.
  7. 1 2 "Advertising News". The New York Times. 8 July 1936. p. 26 – via ProQuest.
  8. ↑ "London Woman Here for Ad Men's Sessions". The Boston Globe. 27 June 1936. p. 1. Retrieved 29 July 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ 'Journalists Married', Western Mail, 9 April 1936, p.15
  10. 1 2 Ruth Dudley Edwards (2013). Newspapermen: Hugh Cudlipp, Cecil Harmsworth King and the Glory Days of Fleet Street. Random House. pp. 131–2. ISBN 978-1-4464-8563-7.
  11. ↑ 'Deaths', Western Mail, 14 November 1938.
  12. ↑ Jones, Catherine. (2012). Wonder girls. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84983-882-5. OCLC 778327556.
  13. ↑ "Diving into the deep end of history". WalesOnline. 8 June 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
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