Celebrating Peggy Spencer!

At the opening of the Peggy Spencer Archive at Bishopsgate Institute, London, on 11th April, the great lady’s great-grandchildren, Mikey and Lilah, danced to mark the occasion and DSI was very proud to dress them, as Peggy Spencer was one of our founders!

As Bishopsgate Institute puts it: “Without Peggy Spencer MBE, there would be no Strictly Come Dancing. The queen mother of Ballroom and Latin, she taught, choreographed and adjudicated for 70 years, training more than 20 winning formation teams for BBC’s Come Dancing. She also put Penge on the map.”

It was in Penge, south-east London, that Peggy Spencer and Geoffrey Hearn started Hearn & Spencer back in 1982. They took over a publication called the Alex Moore Letter Service, which Geoffrey Hearn wrote for 25 years, with new variations, choreography and hints and tips for teachers. The letter service went out all over the world and all that the company sold at the time were the industry’s best known Ballroom and Latin theory books and LP records, and later its own instructional video tapes for teachers to learn from.

In 1995, the company had to move out of the centre at Penge due to the expansion of the range of goods being sold, moving to the courtyard in Croydon, where we still are. Peggy Spencer and Geoff Hearn sold their shares in the business to Malcolm Hearn, Geoffrey’s son, and Keith Hoyle. It was a short while later that the name was changed to DanceSport International – now DSI!  When Keith retired in 2005, Gerald Schwanzer purchased his shares. The rest, as they say, is history.

To learn more about the Peggy Spencer Archive, visit Bishopsgate Institute click here.