Powerful presence: Ivy Russell reigned undefeated as British women’s weightlifting champion through the 1930s – and performed feats of strength at cabaret shows
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: With a story of another of Croydon’s forgotten heroines, DAVID MORGAN profiles sporting pioneer Ivy Russell, a weightlifting champion and professional wrestler
Strong influence: Ivy Russell could deadlift 320Ib, with a broad smile, too
The excitement was building in the Greyhound Hotel. It was a Saturday night dance with a cabaret. The event, organised by Southern Railway, was to raise funds for the railworkers’ union’s orphanage fund. About 400 people were crowded inside, enjoying the music of the Memphis Rhythm Boys.
A grand raffle was held with prizes won by Mr W Walter of Abbey Road, Miss H Herricks of Thornton Heath Road and Mr Jackson of Sanderstead Road. The event was organised by Mr. JF Stone.
And the star turn of that Croydon cabaret night in 1937 was Ivy Russell.
Ivy Russell is another of Croydon’s forgotten heroines, a young woman who in the inter-war years blazed a trail in a sport which had until then only been open to men.
The cabaret audience that night would not be disappointed. Russell showed her mettle by placing a pedestal on her head. Atop the pedestal, carefully balanced, were her trainer, Ted Streeter, and an 11-year-old dancer from Waddon, Pamela Bullock.
This feat of strength won a loud round of applause from the punters.
Russell was getting used to being in the limelight.
Global news: reports of Ivy Russell’s feats were reported from America to Australia
But she had a very difficult start to life. Born in February 1907, she was the eldest of three girls born to James and Elizabeth Russell, living on Mitcham Road. One sister, Violet, was born in August 1908 and a second sister, Lily, arrived in July 1913.
There was much concern when Ivy Russell was born as to whether she would survive. Weighing just 2lb 13oz at birth, she had to be placed in an incubator.
After such a tough start, young Ivy Russell decided she wanted to be “normal”. She joined the Havelock Club, which is where she first met her trainer, Streeter, a retired British Army PT instructor. Ivy Russell took a keen interest in gymnastic work and acrobatics. By the time she was 30 and performing to cabaret audiences, Ivy Russell was proud of her 13-inch biceps, making her stronger than most men.
At one of her earliest weightlifting sessions in the gym at the Havelock, one of the nurses who had attended to Russell when she was born looked on in disbelief at how that little baby had developed into such a strong woman.
Russell worked as a domestic servant, and did her physical training in the evenings.
Most of the cabaret audience would have known of Russell’s feats of strength and appreciated that she was a British weightlifting champion. Some of them might have even been in attendance at Croydon Baths the night she won the competition.
Russell’s victorious weightlifting performance came on Wednesday April 13, 1932. Her challenger was Tillie Tinmouth, from Sunderland. The contest, however, could not be held under the auspices of the British Amateur Weight Lifters’ Association because they did not approve of women weightlifters.
“To most women this would be harmful,” Streeter said at the time.
Champion performance: news report of Ivy Russell’s 1932 win at Croydon Baths. ‘Neither girl fainted or required smelling salts’
“Miss Russell, though, is exceptionally strong. After the contest, though, we hope she will be able to call herself the women’s champion.”
From her training headquarters in Sydenham Road, Russell’s preparation was going well.
As part of the publicity for the contest, Russell invited some reporters to see for themselves the standard she had reached. She told them she could lift two and a half times her own body weight and proceeded to give them a demonstration.
She lifted bar weighing 320lb and held it comfortably with her arms straight down – what would probably be recognised today as a deadlift. Then she lifted 120lb and held it, steadily, above her head. Finally, she lifted a bar with one boy hanging on to each end. The picture of that feat appeared in the Daily Mirror.
Ivy Russell was 5ft 6in tall, and weighed-in at 9 stones (57kg). And she was well prepared.
The contest proved to be one-sided. Two thousand people packed into Croydon Baths on Scarbrook Road to cheer their local hero. The match was decided by an accumulation of four lifts: right-hand clean and jerk, two-hand snatch, two-hand clean and jerk, and two-hand deadlift. Russell lifted a total of 644.5ib (292kg). Tinmouth managed just 564.5lb.
It was the deadlift which really sealed the victory, Russell lifting 300lb to Tinmouth’s 250lb
US coverage: news didn’t travel quite so fast a century ago, with this UP agency report being published more than two weeks after the contest at Croydon Baths
Ivy Russell, the sickly little girl, was a British champion at the age of 25.
Press coverage of her win went global. Newspapers in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America all picked up the story. “Heaven help the bag-snatcher who tries his hand on either of these two charming girls,” one reporter wrote.
Russell looked to find more women to challenge after her success against Tinmouth, but she found it impossible to find anyone willing or able to match her strength.
Undeterred, Russell turned her attention to another sport, wrestling. She developed her wrestling skills under the eye of her trainer and won an amateur competition at the Victoria wrestling club.
She was then matched up to wrestle professionally, the bout fixed for September 12, 1934, at Lane’s Club on Baker Street.
Russell decided on “Brunette Bearcat” as her wrestling nom-de-plume. Her opponent, Peggy Parnell, was the “Blond Tigress”.
Champion pose: Russell had to wait years to find another challenger for her British title
Parnell, a draper’s assistant from Pimlico, was 5ft tall and weighed just seven stone. Russell may have had a two-stone weight advantage, but she was a novice in the ring. The papers billed the event as the first professional women’s wrestling match to be held in London.
When the bout started, Russell went straight onto the attack. She gripped Parnell and brought her down onto the canvas. After four and a half minutes, Parnell was caught in a submission hold and so went one-nil down.
In four more minutes, Parnell was hanging by her legs from Russell’s waist.
Once she dropped her onto the canvas, “The Bearcat” again used her strength to get a submission hold and the bout was over. Despite Russell’s enthusiasm about the victory, one newspaper summed up the evening as follows:
“Said Ivy: I was afraid of hurting her.
“Said Peggy: I may ask for another fight.
“Said the crowd: Thank heaven that’s over.”
The following year, 1935, Russell finally found a challenger for her weightlifting crown, Florence Mason. The contest, held in Dover, ended in a draw, so Russell held on to her crown. What most of the crowd watching didn’t realise was that Russell hadn’t been fully fit.
Leading up to the contest she had been waiting for a train at East Croydon Station when she had been struck on the shoulder and arm by the door of a moving train. It meant that her training was much reduced for some weeks.
Russell’s next defence of her weightlifting title was in 1937, when she defeated Nan Carquest, from Birmingham. The contest took place at the Christ Church Hall, Handcroft Road in Croydon. Christ Church was where young Ivy and her sister Violet were christened together in 1909.
Tragedy: the 1939 car crash in Croydon saw one woman killed, and ended Ivy Russell’s sporting endeavours
In 1939, tragedy struck. On August 4, Russell was driving a car in Croydon which was involved in a fatal collision, when the car she was driving was hit by another vehicle coming out of a side turning. One of the passengers was killed, Mrs Emily Streeter (presumably the wife of Russell’s trainer).
Russell was taken to hospital with “sustained shock, concussion and cuts” and was discharged after treatment . The other passenger in the car, Lilian Webb, survived, but was seriously injured.
Flying Officer Watts, who was driving the car that crashed into Russell, was fined £5 for dangerous driving and £5 for driving with no insurance.
The crash effectively ended Russell’s sporting career. Within a month, war was declared, and there were no more weightlifting competitions or wrestling matches during World War II. Russell’s public appearances dried up. She disappeared from view.
If any readers can shed any light on the latter part of Ivy Russell’s life, I would be extremely grateful.
Russell was a pioneer for women’s sport. She got the weightlifting authorities to realise that women should have their own categories, too. Weightlifting was an Olympic sport for men from 1920; women’s events were first contested at the 2000 Games.
Emily Campbell won Britain’s first-ever Olympic medal in women’s weightlifting in Tokyo in 2021. A small part of that success, that women had finally broken through another barrier, was down to the trailblazer that was Ivy Russell, another of Croydon’s forgotten heroines.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Witherby’s life’s work gave migrations of birds a ring of proof
- Whitgift boy who got top Marks as a silversmith to high society
- Croydon cricketer who helped establish game in Melbourne
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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Enjoyed this a lot.