Vulcana

Vulcana was the stage name of Miriam Kate Williams, a Welsh strongwoman born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in 1874 who died in 1946. She began performing with the strongman William Hedley Roberts, known as Atlas, from 1892, and the pair toured music halls in Britain, Europe and Australia as The Atlas and Vulcana Group of Society Athletes. Her best authenticated feats include a right-handed bent press of at least 56.5 kilograms and an overhead lift of 25 kilograms in each hand, and she was honoured with more than one hundred medals, including one from the French physical culture pioneer Edmond Desbonnet. She was also credited with several acts of heroism, among them a rescue from drowning in the River Usk in 1901.