Gwenethe Walshe

Who was Gwenethe Walshe?

Gwenethe Walshe, was a leading British Latin and ballroom dancer. Born in New Zealand, she lived most of her life in England and moved to Australia after her retirement. She arrived in England in 1936, and by 1938 she had founded a dance school bearing her name in London's West End, which is still operating as the Central London Dance. During World War II she worked by day as a WVS nurse and by night continued to run classes, even during air raids. Gwenethe simply turned up the music and the dancing continued!

Taught latin dance by the leading experts of the day, Monsieur Pierre and Doris Lavelle, Gwenethe and her partner Dimitri Petrides won the first Latin dance competitions. Gwenethe went on to became a key member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. In particular, she helped to develop the technique of latin dancing and the framework for its teaching and competition assessment.