Thomas William Burgess

Bill Burgess

Thomas William Burgess in 1911
Personal information
Born	15 June 1872 Rotherham, England
Died	2 July 1950 (aged 78) Paris, France
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	95 kg (209 lb)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Club	Libellule de Paris
Medal record Water polo Olympic Games 1900 Paris Team

Thomas William Burgess (15 June 1872 – 2 July 1950) was the second person to successfully complete a swim of the English Channel after Matthew Webb. He performed the feat on 6 September 1911, on his 16th attempt. British by nationality, Burgess spent most of his life in France, and won a bronze medal with the French water polo team at the 1900 Olympics.

Burgess was born at 7 Lyndhurst Place, Rotherham, to Alfred Burgess, a blacksmith from Youlgreave, Derbyshire, and Camilla Anna Peat, a cook from Harthill, South Yorkshire. He had a younger sister, Winifred Edith Burgess, who was born in Rotherham on 11 May 1875. Their father worked for the Earl of Shrewsbury and accepted the Earl's offer to run a branch of the business in London. The family moved to Westminster, London, around 1882. During this time, Burgess joined a swimming club and swam to Battersea along the Thames. Around 1889 the Earl offered him the opportunity to set up a French branch of the motor tyre business in Paris. Burgess accepted and moved to France, where he spent the rest of his life.

On 8 August 1893 Burgess married Anne Rosalie Mioux, a French woman, in Neuilly-Sur-Seine in Paris, and lived with her, running a motor business in Levallois-Perret. They had two children, a son born in 1896 and a daughter born in Paris in 1907. It is believed that the son fought for the British in World War I with the York and Lancaster Regiment. Burgess' maternal uncle was a head teacher at a school in Swinton, South Yorkshire. Burgess' sister married in London and had one daughter, Phyllis Camilla Ruegg, in 1898. Burgess' niece, Phyllis Camilla Ruegg, grew up to be the head of an Educational college in London and died at the age of 98 in Camden 1996.