Bedford Physical Training College Photographs

Photographs of sports teams and exercise classes at the Bedford Physical Training College. The majority of the photographs are labelled, which has provided the information below. All the photographs are black and white, some are glued onto card and appear to have been cut out of a scrapbook.

• Aerobics class in the gymnasium
• Three women balancing on a beam in the gymnasium
• Teacher Miss Noel Smith
• Teachers Miss Steatford and Miss Wilkie, seated on a bench
• Teachers Miss Lindsay, Miss Swallow and Miss Baird, shown walking across a field
• Mrs Griffiths at No 3 Lonsdale Road, stood in the garden
• Hockey team photo at Ramsgate
• Third year students doing aerobics outside
• A group of students, some with hockey sticks, sat on a lawn at Bedford
• Third year students in the gymnasium, preparing for a class by laying out mats, undoing ropes and so on
• Team photo on the Isle of Wight, labelled 'champions'
• Two photographs of students performing an outdoor gymnastics display at Bedford

Bedford Physical Training College was founded in 1903 at Wylam Lodge on Landsdowne Road, for the training of women teachers of physical education. It was established by Margaret Stansfeld who had trained in 'Swedish Gymnastics' techniques at the Hampstead Gymnasium run by Martina Bergman-Osterberg, which was a pioneering college for the training of women physical education teachers.

In 1976 the College merged with Bedford Teacher Training College and Mander College of further education to form Bedford College of Higher Education. The new college subsequently merged with De Montfort University in August 1994, becoming the School of Humanities, Sport and Education. In 2006 the Bedford Campus merged with the University of Luton to become the University of Bedfordshire.

Open for general access.

Send to the Archive by former student Beryl Bowie in December 2009.

Catalogued by Katharine Short, Archivist, July 2018.

Copies may be taken for private research purposes only.

DMU Special Collections holds a copy of On Others' Shoulders: An illustrated history of the Polhill and Lansdowne Colleges, now De Montfort University Bedford by Richard Smart, 1994.