A Welsh hero like no other

Welsh strongwoman Vulcana had a life stranger than fiction – and now, author Rebecca John has written her life as a novel. It’s an engrossing exploration of a fearless woman who made her own rules, writes Jenny White...

relationships and emotional life – but she also did her research. First and foremost, she met with Vulcana’s great granddaughter, Jane.

“We talked about her for hours. I wanted to ask Jane’s permission to write this novel, as it was evident from reading the blog that the story meant a lot to her. Jane kindly furnished me with many years of research, which helped enormously, as I now had a timeline to work with, as well as a wealth of photographs, magazine articles and family stories.

“My research then related more to populating the world I was creating than to the initial mapping of the story.”

She drafted the novel during lockdown, so her research had to be completed entirely online – and, while she would have liked to visit certain locations, she found that the concentrated writing time helped to ensure that the story flowed.

The resulting book, written in John’s characteristically beautiful prose, explores themes of womanhood, love, family, friendship, ambition and bravery.

“Kate lived a very brave life in many ways,” she says. “The primary theme of the novel is undoubtedly womanhood, though. I wanted to explore what it means and meant to be a woman, ideas around ownership of the female body, questions around the expectations of motherhood.

“I felt that these were not only questions that would have been central to Kate’s existence, but that they are the same questions women are asking themselves now, more than a hundred years later.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is the relationship between Kate and William. He was 12 years Kate’s senior and they appear to have first met when a teenage Kate began training weights at William’s Abergavenny gymnasium. By the age of 16, she was on stage as a strongwoman.

“When exactly they became lovers, I couldn’t say, but by the time Kate was in her twenties, she was bearing William’s children,” says John. “The claimed brother-sister relationship was a ruse that stayed in place until after their deaths. It is reasonable to assume that they both had a passion for performing, which would no doubt have drawn them together in some sense.

“It would seem that William was, to a great extent, Kate’s PR man. It was he who organised their performances and tours, he who placed stories in the newspapers. As Vulcana’s star rose, so Atlas’ faded, but William excelled in a managerial role and so, in terms of their business relationship, they were integral to each other – he the organiser, she the star.

“Of course, their relationship ran much deeper than that and they remained completely committed to each other into their old age.”

Much less is known about William’s wife Alice, beyond the fact that she and William were married and that they had children together, some of whom were raised alongside Kate and William’s subsequent children in what appears to have been a harmonious set up.

“I chose to portray her as a woman who thrived

on motherhood and who, importantly, had no desire to live the life Kate does,” says John. “I wanted to ensure that there was no jealousy between Kate and Alice – they are great friends in my story, as they very well might have been in life – because this book is a celebration of women and womanhood and I wanted to write about women supporting each other, not being in conflict.”

There are many incredible stories about Vulcana, including that she saved two drowning children from a swollen river, dashed into a burning building to free the horses trapped within and threw a man who was harassing some women in a ladies-only carriage from a train.

“Perhaps one of the strangest of these stories, though, is that Kate was the first person to go to the police to report her suspicions about her missing friend Belle Elmore, or Cora Crippin, in the now infamous murder case of Dr Crippin,” says John.

“The police didn’t take Kate’s suspicions seriously, however, until a male friend, John Nash, urged on by his entertainer wife Lil Hawthorne, asked Scotland Yard to investigate. Dr Crippin was later hanged for the murder of his wife. How enraging it must have been for Kate and her female friends to have to petition a man to make the same report they had made!”

The story of Kate and William’s relationship is a great love story and is central to the book.

“Much later, in their old age, Kate was hit by a cab and became physically and mentally disabled to some extent,” says John. “During this time, William cared for her. Whatever the obstacles, the family stories go that Kate and William were never parted until their deaths.”

John has done their story proud, creating a believable version of Kate/vulcana, a deft exploration of the challenges she faced and a riveting account of a life that far exceeded the ordinary.

“I had so much fun writing this book,” she says. “I loved immersing myself in the world of music hall, creating a cast of characters around Vulcana, but, most of all, I loved getting to know Kate’s character.

“This Kate is, of course, my version of Kate, but I feel that I came to know her through meeting her family, reading interviews with her and viewing her photographs and I really enjoyed giving voice to all her frustrations and joys.

“Most importantly, I want more people to know about Vulcana. She led a fascinating and inspirational life and she has so much to tell us about body positivity, strength and self-belief.

“I think we could all learn a lesson or two from Kate Williams about being our best and boldest selves. She has become my heroine.”

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Vulcana is out now, published by Honno

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