Athlete Stories: Cissie Stewart
Hamilton 1930: Swimming
Scotland’s first female competitors were the swimmers Jessie McVey, Cissie Stewart, Jean McDowall and Ellen King. On 6th August 1930 the Scottish team consisting of 13 competitors, team officials, and team manager George W.Ferguson, left Liverpool en route to Montreal aboard the Cunard liner Andania. The crew made a makeshift pool made of tarpaulin, and marathon runner Dunky Wright recalled “the bonnie lasses of our swim team wiggled like tadpoles in a bowl right across the Atlantic.”
Three of Scotland’s women’s swimmers (Stewart, McDowall and King) had previously competed for Great Britain at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, winning a silver medal in the 4 x 100m freestyle. King was Scotland’s pre-eminent female swimmer of the period and had established Zenith Ladies Swimming Club in 1925 in response to the constraints on female competitive swimming at the time. On board the ship to Canada she maintained her strength and conditioning by using a punchball – an innovation for swimming strength conditioning at the time. King won a silver medal in the 100-yard freestyle and a bronze medal in the 200-yard breaststroke. Stewart won a bronze medal in the 400yd freestyle, and the women’s team rounded off the gala winning a bronze medal in the 4 x 100yd freestyle.
For Cissie her trip to Canada ended with a twist. She eloped with fellow Dundonian Bill Hunt getting married in Walkerville, Ontario. Cissie had smuggled her wedding dress in her luggage and Hunt had travelled as a journalist for The Courier. The pair broke the news to their parents in Dundee through telegrams.
