Album of material assembled by the gymnastics teacher Katherine Woodward, including illustrations by her sister, photographs, programmes, and newspaper cuttings.

London: , 1890-97. Ladies' fencing and gymnastics in Victorian West London This album documents women's physical culture and education in late Victorian London, a period when organized exercise was promoted as a means of discipline and self-improvement, and increasingly as a route to paid work for women. It brings together visual and printed material tracing Katherine Woodward's progression from pupil at Miss Stuart Snell's Ladies' Gymnasium, Alexandra House, Kensington Gore, to her own teaching career at Fulham Congregational Lecture Hall and St John's Mission Hall, Chelsea. Among the highlights are designs by Alice Woodward for fencing and gymnastic lessons at the family home in Beaufort Street, together with a witty illustrated poem titled "Feminine Fencers". The prominence of fencing in the album reflects its late 19th-century revival, with women's fencing being championed by figures such as the French fencing master Baptiste Bertrand. Born into a cultivated scientific family, Katherine Woodward was the daughter of Henry Bolinbroke Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum, and sister to Alice Woodward. The album also includes printed illustrations and tracings by Alice Woodward, photographs of students and instructors at Alexandra House, and printed programmes for gymnastic and fencing displays organized by Katherine Woodward between 1893 and 1897. Earlier programmes from public competitions at Alexandra House and Aldershot are also present, together with around forty newspaper and magazine cuttings on women's athletics, including an article titled "How Women May Make Money As Teachers of Athletics", and a piece of handwritten correspondence relating to Woodward's search for teaching work. Through its combination of visual material and documentary evidence, the album illustrates the close relationship between women's education and physical fitness in this period, embodying Katherine Woodward's fencing motto "Strength and Grace". Quarto (287 x 243 mm). Around 60 items neatly laid down both sides of the 24 card leaves of thick card-stock. Original brown cloth album, bevelled boards, with embossed panel, in black and oxidised gilt to front board, ownership inscription of Katherine Woodward inked to front pastedown. A little rubbed and soiled, discreet restoration at the spine and corners, hinges repaired, album leaves browning and a touch worn with marginal loss, foxing to contents, mild fading of the photographs, occasional soiling, but overall very good.