The First Women's Pro Wrestling Boom (London, 1902)

The story of how women's professional wrestling took over London by storm in 1902.Whether it’s individual wrestlers or whole troupes of wrestlers, women’s professional wrestling has been around for a long time, but when was the first women’s wrestling boom, so to speak? When was the first time when over 30 female wrestlers performed at 9 different venues in the same city in the span of a couple of months while regularly attracting packed houses? The answer to that question is London, England, in 1902.

It’s hard to pinpoint when women’s pro wrestling troupes began, but it was most certainly in Germany and/or Austria. I don’t have concrete examples of this, but it was definitely there. The first female troupe that I have a record of is a German troupe of female wrestlers that performed in England in 1867. In terms of the United States in 1874 an Austrian troupe of female wrestlers performed in Cincinnati and then in 1877 and 1878 there was a German troupe that went on a long tour through the U.S. Those would be some of the earlier examples of female wrestling troupes, but sadly not much is known about them.

Fast forward to April 1902. The popularity of pro wrestling had been on the rise in the United Kingdom, especially in London where music halls and theaters had began regularly featuring wrestling in their variety programs. The top stars in the UK at the time were Jack Carkeek, Tom Cannon, Antonio Pierri and a man who had just made his London debut in March 1902 - George Hackenschmidt - who was fast becoming the biggest wrestling name in the UK.

Now let's talk a little bit about “The Terrible Greek” Antonio Pierri. Pierri is a very interesting and influential figure in pro wrestling history and one who deserves an in-depth article of his own. He was one of the first truly international pro wrestling stars as he traveled the world and performed in a bunch of different places, often attracting big crowds along the way. He was there for the debut of the “Terrible Turks” (in both Paris and London) and then latched onto them as his meal ticket. He was one of Yousouf’s managers in 1898 when "The Terrible Turk" Yousouf arrived in the United States. He then managed Ahmed Madrali, who ended up being Hackenschmidt’s biggest rival in the UK and that rivalry is what elevated the popularity of pro wrestling in the UK to a new level. He was also the manager of Yussiff Mahmout, who was a one of the biggest names in the U.S. for a few years. He also managed a lot of other guys and did a lot of other things, but that’s a conversation for another topic. In this topic we’ll focus on Pierri's involvement with women’s professional wrestling.

There may have been others but prior to 1902 the last notable female wrestling matches that I can find in London were in 1897 when the popular wrestlers George Steadman and Greek George were wrestling at a London music hall. In addition to them there were also some female wrestlers on the same line-ups - two of those female wrestlers being billed as Greek George’s daughters, most notably the 17-year-old Mary George. Unrelated to that, there was also a French female wrestler that year in London, who was wrestling a bear as her act. And then we get to April 1902 when Antonio Pierri introduced his own “international troupe of champion lady wrestlers” (as the adverts would say), which lead to an unprecedented interest in women’s wrestling in London.

Very little is known about Antonio Pierri’s lady wrestlers. They sort of appeared out of nowhere. Most, if not all, of them seem to have been trained by Pierri himself. From 7 April onward the troupe began performing at the Royal Music Hall in Holborn. They, and the other two troupes we’ll discuss below, were wrestling in the Greco-Roman style. Their initial contract with the venue was for four weeks (wrestling six days a week, only Sundays off), but they ended up being such an attraction that their run at the venue was extended until 7 June. Such long engagements were not typical at the time - usually wrestlers would stay at the same venue for a week or two, maybe a bit longer if the run was going well, but two full months was definitely something out of the ordinary. Toward the end of the run they were performing twice daily (afternoon and evening). In addition to this between 7 and 13 April they were also wrestling at the Camberwell Palace of Varieties in Southwark (at night, after the afternoon show at the Royal), but after that they became exclusive to the Royal.

Pierri's women weren’t without competition either - for the first week of their run Jack Carkeek was headlining at the Bedford Theatre in Camden, and for the first two weeks of their run George Hackenschmidt was wrestling twice a day at the Tivoli Theatre of Varieties in the City of Westminster. Carkeek and Hackenschmidt then moved on to wrestle elsewhere, outside of London.

British illustration depicting the two biggest wrestling attractions in London in April 1902 (George Hackenschmidt and Antonio Pierri’s lady wrestlers)

Initially Pierri’s lady wrestler troupe featured six wrestlers: Miss Violet Bradford (of Liverpool, billed as the champion of England), Miss McGregor (Scotland), Miss Keziah (Arabia), Miss Antonetta (Italy), Miss Noack (Germany), and Miss Rosita (Spain). As time went on other new faces appeared such as Miss Hamilton (Peterborough), Miss Dolly French (Manchester), Miss Maggie Nolan (Ireland), Miss Adele Fournier (France), Miss Jassoni (Algeria), and Miss Ross. The top star of the troupe was Violet Bradford. Reportedly, she was 20 years old, 11 stone (154 pounds), 5’9”. She had a background in gymnastics and had trained five or six months under Pierri to become a wrestler. Bradford had an open challenge - £10 to any woman she failed to throw in 15 minutes. The biggest match during the troupe’s run at the Royal was a 26 May match between Bradford and Fournier, which was billed as a World Championship match. Bradford won, 2 falls to 1, to gain recognition as the World champion. Pierri himself also wrestled matches with lesser-known male opponents on some of the cards during the run.

Violet Bradford

Rosita and Violet Bradford

While all of this was going on another troupe appeared in London. It was managed by Professor Peter Ajax. From 28 April onward his troupe was performing at the Islington Empire Theatre in Islington (afternoon and evening shows). Then from 5 May onward for 12 days the troupe was also at the Metropolitan Theatre in Edgware. Toward the end of May it moved to the Empress Theatre in Brixton and also at the Euston Theatre of Varieties in Euston. And finally in early June they were at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse in Hammersmith. Unlike Pierri’s troupe, which seemed to have been women with no prior wrestling experience that he trained himself from scratch, Ajax's troupe was made up of female wrestlers who had already been wrestling in mainland Europe for a while, and Ajax himself had been involved in women's wrestling for about three years by that point.

The top star of Ajax’s troupe was Madame Appolina from Belgium (real name: Elise Gillaine Herbigneaux). She was billed as the World Champion. In the year and a half prior to this Appolina had won a bunch of tournaments in Belgium, some of them featuring more than 20 women. In addition to being a wrestler she had also been performing various strongwoman and athletic feats and was well-known in that field too. In London Appolina had an open challenge - £25 to any woman that could last 15 minutes with her and £10 to any man (of up to 154 pounds) who could do the same. Appolina wrestling and defeating men was something different compared to the Pierri troupe where there were no woman vs. man matches. The other wrestlers in the Ajax troupe were Miss Staris (Spain), Miss Therese (India), Miss Marietti (Switzerland), Miss Margarita (Belgium) and Miss Garetta (Italy). Later on British women like Miss Bertha Proctor (Westbourne Park) and Miss Elen Griffiths wrestled with the Ajax troupe too.

Appolina

With there being two champion claimants in town (Pierri’s Violet Bradford and Ajax’s Appolina) they inevitably ended up challenging each other. On the very next day after Ajax’s troupe made their London debut Pierri issued an open challenge for any of his lady wrestlers to take on any other lady athlete to a finish for £20 up to £500 or £10 if they could last 10 minutes against a selected member of his troupe. We will discuss it in a moment, but a week later when a third women’s troupe appeared in London Pierri had another challenge - Miss Bradford and Miss McGregor to take on all of the other lady wrestlers in one night for £100. His only condition was that the matches had to take place at the Royal since his lady wrestlers were contracted to appear exclusively at the Royal. So then on 13 May an interesting thing happened - Ajax and Appolina turned up unannounced at the Royal and Appolina demanded to wrestle Violet Bradford there and then. Bradford appeared to be up for it, but Pierri didn’t allow it. In the weeks that followed there were some more back and forth challenges between Bradford and Appolina, including one by Pierri for a match with a £250 stake, but the two women never wrestled.

Newspaper adverts for the two rival troupes next to each other in the paper (notice the “a wrestler, not an acrobat” shot at the rival troupe's champion)

To make things even more interesting a third women’s troupe appeared as well. It was managed by someone called Cattani. From 5 May onward the troupe was wrestling at the Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth, and then a week later they wrestled at the Paragon Theatre in Bethnal Green. This troupe seemed to feature mostly British women: Senorita Zalvera (Milan), Miss Alice Cartwright (Leeds), Miss Sybil Colquhoun (New York), Miss Gwendolyn Davis (Cardiff), Miss Violet Reed (Inverness), Miss Mollie Courtney (Conway), Miss Amy Curzon (Essex), Miss Nora Saunders (Dublin), Miss Olive Vivian (Monmouth), Miss Florence Stuart (Warwick), Miss Mollie Russell (Ulster), Miss Ruby Gwynn (London), Miss Clive (Liverpool).

The term “wrestling boom” was used in several British newspapers during this time to describe what was happening with the lady wrestlers in London. The reports constantly mentioned how the venues were full when the women wrestled. All in all during this two-month period there were three different women’s troupes in London (over 30 wrestlers in total), nine different venues hosted their matches and at the peak of the run there were six women’s wrestling shows per day at five venues in the same city, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. That said, it wasn’t a sustained run, however. After their London engagements were completed the three troupes toured elsewhere in the UK for a while. In 1903 Cattani’s troupe returned to London as did Appolina. On and off there continued to be women’s troupes in the UK (and London specifically), but overall interest in women’s wrestling seemed to decrease and was nowhere near the level of the interest during the short-lived boom of 1902.

As for Antonio Pierri, in 1905 he tried to replicate his London success in the United States as well. Six of the women from his troupe went to the States, chaperoned by Pierri’s wife. It doesn’t seem like Pierri himself made the trip - he was in the UK with his protege Madrali at the time. In the U.S. Pierri’s women were billed as “Antonio Pierri’s troupe of international champion lady wrestlers”. Among them were Violet Bradford (billed as Maud Bradford), McGregor (listed in one article as Winnifred McGregory) and Elsie Stewart. Bradford was billed as the star of the troupe and the champion of England. She had an open challenge of $500 to any woman she couldn’t throw in 15 minutes and the other five women had the same challenge, but for $100 instead. The women were to wrestle in the Greco-Roman style. Based on newspaper adverts, late August through mid December 1905 the troupe wrestled in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Holyoke, Cincinnati, and perhaps elsewhere too. These were all bouts at theatres and music halls.

Antonio Pierri’s troupe of lady wrestlers in the United States (1905)

Back in the UK in October/November 1906 Pierri attempted to create a new women’s wrestling star in London. He introduced a woman by the name of Miss Juno May (22 years old, 259 pounds, 6’2”). She had an open challenge - £1,000 to any woman or man that could beat her and £5 to anyone who could last 15 minutes. In late December 1906 and early January 1907 she wrestled for a bit at the Royal Cambridge Music Hall in Shoreditch. The matches were in the Greco-Roman style and she wrestled both women and men. A few months later she wrestled in Dublin as well and there was some talk in the U.S. press about her coming to America, but that never happened. Ultimately Juno May didn’t last long and that was the end of Pierri’s involvement in women’s wrestling, I believe.

Juno May and Antonio Pierri (1906)

Juno May (photo and headline from the U.S. press, 1907)

P.S. While we're on the topic of women’s pro wrestling in Europe, it’s good to point out that in the pre-WWI years there were a number of women’s wrestling troupes in Continental Europe, which were managed by the likes of Ferdinand Dieckmann, Joseph Rosenstein, Richard Moresco, Alex Müller, Olga Zelinsky, Mrs. Voss, Frida Damberg, etc. London 1902 is what I'm spotlighting in this article, because women's wrestling reached a short but significant peak there, but in reality Germany was the place where women’s wrestling was featured the most regularly and Germany deserves credit for that. At times Belgium (early 1900s) and the Russian Empire (post-1907 for a few years) had pretty active women's pro wrestling scenes too.