Description:Biographical Details (cont)

In 1907 Rhoda moved the College to Yew Tree House, Chester Road, Erdington (later redesignated Sutton Coldfield), home of Anstey until 1981, land and many buildings were added including Lavender Cottage where she lived for a while.

Rhoda adopted three girls, informally in 1919 (at the age of 54). Joannne Vanner, Beryl Elizabeth and Rachel Phyllis Russell, aged 6, 4 and 2 respectively; they were given the surname Anstey. By their formal adoption on 13th May 1927 they were living in Beech Cottage in the grounds of King’s Welcome, Battledown, Cheltenham, where Rhoda resided after her semi-retirement. They must have shared something of Rhoda’s love of physical culture, health and the outdoors. One daughter, Joanne Vanner Anstey, married George Bernard West and they had two daughters. One, Patricia Joy, trained at Bedford College of Physical Education 1953 - 56.

Networking was an important part of Rhoda’s life. A chance meeting at Anstey in 1898 led to the formation of ‘The Ling Association’ in 1899, in which she played an active role and served on its committee. The Association was unsupported by Madame Bergman Österberg but by 1904 its leaders had forged award bearing powers in the ‘Ling Association Diploma’ awarded from 1905 (Bailey and Vamplew 1999, 14).

Rhoda was an ardent supporter of the Enfranchisement of Women, the Temperance Movement and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, hosting meetings at Anstey. She was one of the original members of the Gymnastic Teachers’ Suffrage Society, founded in January 1909. She was a member of the Women’s Temperance Association, the Food and Dress Reform League and the Women’s Social and Political Union.

After her first serious illness and semi-retirement to Cheltenham in 1918, Rhoda returned briefly to Anstey in 1920 and became joint Principal, with Ida Bridgman from 1921-27. She developed pneumonia in 1929 and went to the Duchess Nursing Home in London for an operation on 27 February 1936, she never recovered consciousness and was buried, in Cheltenham cemetery, following a service, on 2nd March 1936.

Recognition of Miss Anstey’s generous qualities are perhaps best reflected in the memorial chosen by the Old Students’ Association, which was to provide an annual bursary for a student of lesser means to train at Anstey. M. Glynn Williams who had trained at Anstey’s Leasowes between 1900 – 1902 wrote this testimony on the death of Rhoda in 1936:

"Miss Anstey was to her first students essentially a pioneer, preparing the way for others and clearing obstructions. She opened the door to us of a new life, a new profession, and did it with an assurance that herein was a work worth doing and we had our part to play in it. We knew the story of the founding of the other colleges and the starting of the Ling Association. Like most of the New Women of the age she had wide interests and a mind able to realise the existence of contemporary struggles. Therefore College was not hide-bound or narrow in its outlook; our own line of action was not the only life worth living, and also it was only worthwhile if the cultured mind controlled its activities. This was put before us often, and one remembers the diversity of gifts held by visitors to College; the readings in Miss Anstey’s own sitting room, the following of the Boer War in the newspapers after dinner. We had a good deal of freedom and I do not think it was ever abused; we had soon to face our own difficulties and stand on our own feet and we were prepared for this. We had glorious grounds, and not one of us who knew that wonderful Shenstone’s “garden” gone wild will ever fail to remember the beauty of it all. What an inspiration to set a Physical Training College in such surroundings. I for one loved the place as if it were my own. Now Miss Anstey…. has left. We who try to be pioneers too, are grateful for all she did and all she proposed to do. Can one say more? She succeeded in inculcating the spirit to strive always for the work and never to bring dishonour to its name…."(Anstey Physical Training College Magazine, No 38, p. 38, Autumn 1936)