A record breaking female high jumper has been written into the history books.

Phyllis Green from Ewell, died in 1999 aged 91. In 1925, in two women’s athletic competitions at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium she broke world records for the women’s high jump at the age of 17.

In the latest update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to be published on Thursday, May 24, athletics writer and statistician Mel Watman describes how Phyllis Green became the first woman to clear 5 feet.

Her athletics career was brief; she retired in 1927 and disappeared from public view. Only recently has it been established she married and became a missionary.

She settled in Ewell, where she lived for nearly 50 years in Conaways Close.

Ewell residents will have known her by her married name, Phyllis Nicoll and the records of her athletics career are preserved at Bourne Hall Museum in Ewell.

She joins nearly 40 notable historic residents of Ewell whose lives are recorded in the dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is available online at http://www.oxforddnb.com/ and at public libraries across the UK.