Person    | Female  Born 18/3/1847  Died 21/7/1928

Ellen Terry

Categories: Theatre

Born in Coventry. From an acting family her stage career started at age 8. When 17 she retired from the stage to marry artist G.F. Watts, 30 years her senior. Her desire for the stage was greater than that for her husband and they separated after less than a year. She disappeared and her father misidentified a body recovered from the Thames as hers. She resurfaced to reveal that she was, aged 20, having a happy affair with the architect-designer Edward W. Godwin, which produced two children. She went on to have two more marriages, each to actors (Irving and an American 30 years her junior), but her greatest partnership was professional, with the actor/manager Henry Irving. Died at her home in Kent, Smallhythe, which is now a museum. John Gielgud was her great-nephew.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Ellen Terry

Commemorated ati

Ellen Terry - SW3

Ellen Terry, the great actress, lived here from 1904 to 1920.

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Ellen Terry - SW5

London County Council Ellen Terry, 1847-1928, actress, lived here.

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Queen's Theatre - Long Acre

Queen's Theatre The old Queen's Theatre occupied this site for just eleven y...

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Other Subjects

Finsbury Park Empire Theatre

Finsbury Park Empire Theatre

Designed by Frank Matcham. One of London’s most popular variety theatres. Here, in January 1921, the magician P. T. Selbit performed the illusion of "sawing a lady in half" - its first public perfo...

Building, Theatre

1 memorial
George F. J. MacLeod

George F. J. MacLeod

George Francis James MacLeod. Manager of the Hackney Empire. Born in Chorlton in 1870, and married in Leeds in 1893, a commercial traveller in Potternewton, Leeds in 1901. Source: Wikimedia.

Person, Theatre

1 memorial
Mrs Bateman

Mrs Bateman

We initially identified the Mrs Bateman on the mural as the wife of Sidney Frances Bateman, theatre manager, initially at the Lyceum Theatre with her husband but on his death she carried on alone f...

Person, Theatre

1 memorial
Roger Lloyd-Pack

Roger Lloyd-Pack

Actor. Born in Islington. For many years he was a relatively unknown stalwart with the Royal Shakespeare and National Theatre companies. It was in 1981 that he achieved national fame, playing the l...

Person, Cinema, Theatre, TV & Radio

1 memorial
People's Palace

People's Palace

Proposed by Walter Besant, the first People's Palace was built by the Beaumont Trustees, ‘Unitarian philanthropists’, to replace Beaumont's Philosophical Institution which had been in Beaumont Squa...

Building, Education, Sport / Games, Theatre

3 memorials

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King Edward VI

King Edward VI

Only son of Henry VIII (with Jane Seymour who died 12 days after the birth), born Hampton Court. Became king aged 9 and died of consumption 6 years later, at Greenwich Palace. While king he was sup...

Person, Royalty

12 memorials