Vulcana by Rebecca F John
An inspirational fictional telling of Welsh Victorian Strongwoman Kate Williams
Vulcana is a fictional telling of the real story of Victorian ‘strongwoman’ Kate Williams (born 1874), starting when she runs away from home at 16 to travel with the love of her life, William Roberts.
They perform in music halls as Atlas and Vulcana – the climax of their act is that Kate can lift William over her head.
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She and William present themselves to the public as brother and sister as they travel the world because William is already married, and William’s wife brings up Kate’s children with her own.
Kate is driven by love: for William, for her children, for performing, and for life, and Rebecca’s gorgeous, immersive writing fits perfectly this brave, unconventional woman and her amazing story.
My Review
Seeing as my son is a novice strongman, how could I not want to read this book. The feats of strength they perform today would no doubt make Atlas and Vulcana look tame in comparison, but while Atlas – William Roberts – may not have been all he purported to be, Kate was undoubtedly exceptionally strong for a woman.
Kate ran away from home when she was sixteen to be with William, who she had met when she was fifteen. He was twelve years her senior and already had a wife Alice, who was a number of years older than him (old enough to easily be Kate’s mother), and they already had five children (reportedly). While Kate remained passionately in love with William until the day she died in 1946 at the age of 72, his relationship with Alice was very different. Kate and William had at least four children together, or maybe six – accounts vary – though they never married. Alice looked after them as well as her own, while Atlas and Vulcana toured, often for months at a time. It all seems a bit strange to us, but Alice was happy with the arrangement and she and Kate became good friends.
Much of the story is based in fact – Vulcana did stop a runaway horse with her bare hands when she was thirteen, she really saved two boys from drowning in the River Usk, she led the police to the arrest and hanging of Dr Crippen for murdering his wife, and rescued four horses from a fire in a burning theatre. In fact Kate loved animals, and any suffering really upset her.
A lot of the story, however, is fictionalised. We wouldn’t have insight into her relationship with Williams, their sex life (how could we know), the lives of the children when they were with Alice and the history of the other members of the troupe like Mabel, Abe and ‘Hatty’ Hatfield.
Kate was friends with the renowned music hall artist Marie Lloyd, whose tragic death in her early fifties is well documented, and also briefly followed the suffragette movement. But Kate’s real passion was that women should be strong, they should cast off the stays and corsets that actually damaged their insides, and take regular exercise to remain healthy. It’s something that we believe to be so important today – she was ahead of her time by decades.
I loved this book. It’s so beautifully written. The ‘future’ in 1939 when Kate is hit by a taxi and believed to be dead and seven years later when she is remembering her life brought tears to my eyes. What an amazing woman she was. She will be burned in my memory forever.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
As an aside, my husband is related by marriage to another music hall ‘legend’ named Lydia Thompson – she was briefly married to riding-master John Tilbury, who was killed in a steeplechase race in 1864. Thompson was a professional actress, comedienne and burlesque dancer, who left home at fourteen (even younger than Vulcana), to go on the stage. This was fifty years earlier. Her performances were considered ‘to transgress the boundaries of propriety’. Described as an ‘idiotic parody of masculinity’, and ‘monstrously incongruous and unnatural,’ in America she was both hated and adored. Like Kate’s daughter Nora, Lydia’s daughter Zeffie Tilbury appeared in a number of Hollywood films. There is far more documented about Lydia Thompson, than there is about Kate Williams, such is the pity.
About the Author
Rebecca F. John was born in Llanelli. Her first novel, The Haunting of Henry Twist (Serpent’s Tail, 2017) was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. She won the PEN International New Voices Award 2015. In 2017 she was on the Hay Festival’s ‘The Hay 30’ list. Her stories have been broadcast on Radio 4. She lives in Swansea with her dogs. Her previous book for Honno, Fannie, was published in January 2022 and was Waterstones Book of the Month for Wales and the BCW Book of the Month.
