Sir Francis Joseph Edmund Beaurepaire (13 May 1891 – 29 May 1956) was an Australian distance freestyle swimmer from the 1900s to the 1920s, who won three silver and three bronze medals, from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. He was also a decorated politician and businessman, serving for ten years in the Victorian Legislative Council and as Lord Mayor of Melbourne and building a multimillion-dollar tyre business empire, Beaurepaires and Olympic Tyres. Early life Beaurepaire was born to Francis Edmund de Beaurepaire, a cable tram conductor, and Mary Edith Inman. Growing up in Melbourne, Beaurepaire was educated at Albert Park State School and Wesley College. He had his first swimming lesson at the age of four, when his father dropped him into the sea water baths at South Melbourne with a rope tied around his waist. He often practised in the sea, close to where effluent was ejected into Port Phillip Bay. Later, when he had earned more money, he paid tuppence (2d. = two pence) to enter the now demolished Stubbs' South Melbourne Baths to train. His career was nearly ended when he was hospitalized for 12 months with rheumatic fever. However, encouraged by his schoolteacher and South Melbourne barber Tommy Horlock, who later became his coach, Beaurepaire fought off the ailment and resumed training with the Albert Park State School Swimming Club. Swimming career In 1906, a few months before his 15th birthday, Beaurepaire won the and freestyle at the Victorian championships. In 1908, he captured the , 880 yd and mile freestyle events at the Australian Championships to claim a spot in the 1908 Summer Olympics team. On arrival in London with Horlock, he found that no arrangements had been made to pick them up, so they were forced to live with 16 pounds between them for a month, before officials became aware of their plight. Beaurepaire trained in London for three months before the Games. Unable to afford admission to swimming pools, He was forced to train at Highgate Ponds, at temperatures of 10 °C. After a event in the River Thames prior to the Olympics he was numbed by the cold to such an extent that he collapsed and needed to be pulled from the water to avoid drowning. Later he won the British Championship at Bradford, defeating Henry Taylor of Lancashire, and then proceeded to win