Ted Heaton

rdf:langString Ted Heaton

rdf:langString Ted Heaton

rdf:langString Edmund Caunce Nowell Heaton

rdf:langString Ted Heaton

rdf:langString Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool

rdf:langString Portrait of Ted Heaton c1910

rdf:langString Edmund Caunce Nowell Heaton

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Elizabeth Emery

rdf:langString Julia Rolling

rdf:langString Edmund Caunce Nowell 'Ted' Heaton (late 1872 – 19 September 1937) was a British diver and swimming instructor born in Liverpool, England. He is notable for his small tank diving displays during the late 19th century and for his several unsuccessful attempts to swim the English Channel during the early 20th century. Having begun training to swim the channel in 1893, he made a total of seven attempts. He often came within several miles of the French coast, with the closest being in August 1909 when he came within 2 miles (3.2 km). His swimming efforts earned him a role as a superintendent of his local swimming baths and a salary of £120 a year which also included accommodation and energy provision. Heaton undertook army service during World War I, by joining the Sportsmen's Battalions in 1916 given he was several years too old to enlist ordinarily. He worked with the Royal Fusiliers at Dover as a sergeant-instructor to prepare them for trench warfare and even did duty at a prisoner camp in India, before being discharged in 1919 on grounds of disability due to gallstones. He was employed as a swimming pool attendant on transatlantic passenger ships, notably the RMS Carinthia during 1928 to 1929. In the early 1930s as superintendent and swimming instructor at his swimming baths, he devised a swimming tuition system to allow school students to enter the water simultaneously, which utilised wood floats and canvas webs and upon catching the attention of Poland's Director of Education, was reviewed favourably. He was married twice, firstly to Elizabeth who died just two years later, while his second wife Julia committed suicide in 1927. He had three children to his second wife, two sons and a daughter. During his later life, he advertised himself as a swimming instructor at his Cornwallis Street baths. He died in September 1937 while on a visit to the seaside town of Southport.