Gwendoline Womersley Set XVI (1917-1920)

Scope and Content

Loose pages (21) from an album which belonged to Gwendoline Womersley of Set XVI. The album contains 168 photographs of students and staff of Bedford Physical Training College for the period c.1917-1920. Most of the images have captions describing places, occasions and naming individual students and staff.
Scenes from life at the College include the following: students swimming at Commercial Road Swimming Baths, playing hockey and lacrosse, engaged in dance and gymnastics displays; netball team; picnics, boating, and swimming in the river Great Ouse, skating at Goldington, Bedfordshire and having fun in the snow; group photograph of Set XV (1917-1919) and named students from Sets XVI and XVII (1918-1921); exterior of nos. 27, 29, 31 and 37 Lansdowne Road, and 5 Dynevor Road; interior of gymnasium, medical room, Common Room, teaching room, dining room and bedrooms at 17 and 37 Lansdowne Road; scenes from Demonstration Day 1919, tea parties, visits to Biddenham and Oakley in Bedfordshire, Hitchin Girls School and 'Hitchin Reading Party 1920'. Staff include the groundsman Mr Mansfield, tutors Freda Colwill, Ida Hadley, Miss E. Johansson, Elin Lindelöf, Molly Petit, Cicely Read, Elizabeth Roberts, Salome Wynyard and the Principal Margaret Stansfeld.
The album also contains photographs of Effie Stewart Williams (1887-1995) on a visit to the College on Demonstration Day 1920.