Queenie Judd

Isabel “Queenie” Judd, then known as Isabel Boake, first got involved with gymnastics with the St. Saviour’s Church Ladies Club in London before winning a West Ham League Shield as a member of the Woodgrange Baptist Team at the West Ham Council Gym on Balaam Street. She then joined Northampton Polytechnic where she trained under physical director Rudolf “Obie” Oberholzer. She married Albert Edward Judd in 1913; the couple had one daughter. They lived in Dieppe, France for a time, but eventually returned to London and Isabel continued her involvement in gymnastics, competing and winning accolades in multiple tournaments with the NPI women’s team throughout the early 1920s.

Her greatest sporting achievement would come at the age of 41 in 1928, when she was one of the six members of the NPI Women’s Gymnastics Club selected for the first ever British women’s gymnastics team at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. Along with NPI team-mates Lucy Desmond, Jessie Kite, Doris Woods, Midge Moreman, and Ethel Seymour she helped Great Britain collect the team bronze medal. It would be 84 years before a British female gymnast would next stand on an Olympic podium, when Beth Tweddle won the uneven bars bronze medal in 2012. Following the Olympics, Judd remained active in gymnastics circles as a trainer as well as a judge in local competitions.