Helen Aitchison

Frances Helen Aitchison (1881 to 1947) was a tennis player born in Sunderland who won a silver medal at the 1912 Summer Olympics. Partnered with Herbert Barrett, she took silver in the indoor mixed doubles, and she also entered the indoor singles, where she was eliminated in the quarter-finals. Her Olympic success made her the first person from Sunderland to win an Olympic medal. Born on 6 December 1881, the eldest daughter of the shipbuilder James Aitchison and his wife Mary, she played the 1907 County Championships with three of her sisters, Alice, Kathleen and Sibyl, helping Durham to defeat Middlesex 5-4. She entered the Wimbledon Championships for the first time in 1909 at the age of 27, winning the unofficial Ladies Doubles title with Agnes Tuckey, and she competed again in 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914, reaching three semi-finals and two quarter-finals in the Ladies Singles. In 1913 she won the singles title at the World Covered Court Championship in Stockholm, beating Kate Gillou in the final in straight sets. She married John Leisk at Epsom in 1914 and died on 26 May 1947.