Child competed in the 1948 Olympics in London in diving, despite a fear of heights, and later became a British Empire Games champion.

A post on the Team GB’s Twitter account read: "Condolences to the family and friends of 1948 diving Olympian Edna Child, who passed away in May.

"Aged 100, Edna was Britain's oldest living Olympian."

At an early age, Child was diagnosed with empyema and spent much of her childhood undergoing operations.

Following one serious operation, she was advised to be careful not to over-exert herself.

Child ignored this advice and took up swimming, then subsequently diving.

"I started to do diving, but I was a bit of a coward at first because I didn't like heights!" 

Child won the bronze medal in the 1938 European Championships in London aged just 15 but her promising career was put on hold during the Second World War as she joined the army.

Once her career resumed, she finished sixth at London 1948, but won gold in the springboard and platform at the 1950 British Empire Games - now known as the Commonwealth Games - in Auckland.

While training for the Games, Child injured herself while doing a somersault on a new trampoline at the Highgate Diving Club, having misjudged the additional height compared to an Olympic regulation springboard.

Child dislocated her instep bone, but her coach bandaged it up and she returned to training.

Child met her future husband Kin Tinegate sailing home from New Zealand, where he had competed in the rowing at the British Empire Games, winning a bronze in the double sculls.

In February 1950, Child announced her retirement from competitive diving, stating that she "shall go back to being a housewife" and that it was likely she would emigrate to Canada with her husband.

She announced her plans to emigrate in April 1950, having turned down "a very tempting offer" to remain in England as a professional, undertaking a diving tour of Great Britain over five months.

Child remained in the United Kingdom and in 1954 divorced her first husband, marrying Tinegate the same year and having two daughters with him. 

Sadly, he died just four years after they got married in 1958 at the age of just 43.

Child never remarried.

"I've never met anybody like him, he was an incredible person," she later said. 

In February 2013, Child's house was burgled and her two gold medals from the British Empire Games were stolen, along with a laptop and jewellery.

Child had been running errands when she returned home to find it ransacked and the medals taken, which she planned to pass on to her daughters.

In 2016, Child, who had been born in West Ham in London, helped to promote the European Aquatics Championships when they returned to London for the first time since 1938, when she won a bronze medal.