Mollie Bagot Stack 1883-1935

Mollie (Mary) Bagot Stack founded The Fitness League* in 1930, revolutionising exercise for women, leading the way forward and setting standards for an industry still in its infancy.

Her Dream To create a system of exercise structured and graded to the needs of all ages and abilities. To make that system available through highly trained teachers. To equip those teachers with the knowledge and expertise to teach and develop classes in a professional, caring, and enthusiastic way.

Over 14,000 members, 300 Centres and 280 teachers, with classes in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Holland. We have an organisation we are proud of, and a tried and tested system of exercise which continuously evolves and which has successfully survived media-led fitness fads.

Born in Dublin on 12 June 1883, Mollie learned much of healing and medicine from her father, Theodore, a doctor who had studied dentistry at Harvard. Encouraged by him, Mollie worked hard at her studies, but at 17 she developed rheumatic fever which forced her to give up her dreams of a career and independence.

During a family trip to Paris she met Mrs Josef Conn, who specialised in remedial health exercises. Influenced by the work of Sir Frederick McCoy at Melbourne University (who in turn had been inspired by the poise and balance known to the ancient Greeks, and by his own training in gynaecology), Mrs Conn was developing new theories about exercise for women.

This fascinated Mollie, who in 1907 enrolled on a course at the Conn Institute in London. Following graduation, where she gained honours in every subject, she was offered a teaching post by Mrs Conn.

Mollie wanted to make her teaching available to those who need it most – not just an affluent minority. Moving to Manchester to teach for the Institute, she became friends with the wife of a local mill owner. They realised that the women working in the mill could benefit from systematic exercise and after-work classes were organised with great success. The power of the System to re-invigorate and release tension after a long, hard day was so strong that demand for classes quickly grew.

1912 found Mollie at Lansdowne in the Himalayas with her husband Hugh, an officer with the British Army. Mollie was impressed with the grace and poise of the Indian women and she realised that their “unconscious grace was largely due to the looseness and freedom of their movements and to the habits of posture, which were universal once but which no longer exist in western countries” (Cruickshank, 1937). She found an Indian teacher, Mr Gopal, who instructed her in the asanas (the physical positions central to yoga) and relaxation techniques. She continued to develop the Conn system by adding movements influenced by the asanas as well as inventing her own "for graceful deportment and figure training".

In 1914 her daughter Prunella was born, but it wasn’t long before war was declared and Hugh’s Gurkha battalion was ordered into action on the front line in France and Hugh was tragically killed. For a while Mollie’s life fell apart. But, once the war was over, the grittiness of Mollie’s character enabled her to continue what was to become her life’s work.

Once peace had settled, Mollie realised that she had to continue her profession. She set up an exercise class for children in her drawing room, initially teaching her daughter, Prunella, her niece, Cinderella, (or Drella), and Peggy and Joan St Lo. Her classes soon developed and by 1920 she was teaching small groups of women and girls in her house and treating individuals who had been referred to her by their doctors.

In 1925 Mollie opened the Bagot Stack Health School. Based in a house in Holland Park, the school offered training not only in remedial exercises but also expressive dance. Mollie taught health exercises, both practical and remedial; Marjorie Duncombe taught Greek dance, ballet, national dancing, and composition; and a visiting doctor taught anatomy and physiology. Soon there were students training full-time, including Prunella, Mollie’s daughter, who combined her academic studies with teacher training. At 16 she graduated with honours.

Peggy St. Lo's famous leap, later adopted as the League's logo

Mollie was also running classes for office workers and shop employees, but she wanted to do more – to make even more classes available at affordable prices.

In 1930 she founded The Women’s League of Health and Beauty, opening a class in central London, and within three months it had over one thousand members. In order to get some publicity, Mollie organised a free display to the music of a military band by 150 members in Hyde Park. The demonstration was a huge success and afterwards press cuttings flooded in from all over the world.

Budgets were tight and expansion wasn’t easy, but soon League centres opened in Belfast, Birmingham and Glasgow. More teachers trained and by 1934 membership had increased to 47,000.

In 1935, following Mollie’s premature death from cancer, Prunella took over the running of the League. She continued to increase membership, with yet more centres opened in Ireland, Australia, Hong Kong, and Canada, and aimed for national recognition through the Board of Education.

By 1936 the League had almost 100,000 members and was a founder member of the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training which enjoyed the support of the Board of Education and later became the Central Council of Physical Recreation. In 1937 Prunella was invited by the Prime Minister to join the Fitness Council.

And so the League progressed. Even the Second World War couldn’t put a stop to its momentum. Whilst the basis of the modern Fitness League exercise system was created in the early part of the last century, it has continued to be refined and expanded taking into account current medical thinking.

* First known as The Women's League of Health and Beauty, The Fitness League now has classes across the UK and internationally.

Condensed from "Zest For Life" by Prunella Stack.