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.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Ellen Terry
Commemorated ati
Queen's Theatre - Long Acre
Queen's Theatre The old Queen's Theatre occupied this site for just eleven y...
Other Subjects
Nina Boucicault
English actor. Born into a theatrical family, she began acting as a child. She was the first to play the title role in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, beginning in 1904. Died Hamilton Road, Ealing.
Philip Astley
Equestrian performer and circus proprietor. Born Newcastle under Lyme. Aged 17 he joined the 15th Light Dragoons where he developed an exceptional ability breaking and riding horses. Discharged as ...
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...
Henry Condell
Fellow actor and friend of William Shakespeare and John Heminge. Heminge and Condell had been co-partners with Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre. On his death the plays existed only in the form of ...
Sir John Gielgud
Actor. Born 7 Gledhow Gardens, South Kensington as Arthur John Gielgud, great nephew to Ellen Terry. The name indicates his Lithuanian descent. A great Shakespearean actor, he is possibly best know...
Previously viewed
Society of British Artists
The following text was copied from the picture source website: The Royal Society of British Artists was established in 1823 by a small group of artists who wished to form an alternative to the Roy...
Lady Jean Medawar
Wife of Sir Peter Medawar, the man in our picture, and thus known as Lady Medawar. Worked passionately in the promotion of family planning, especially for young girls. Chair of the Family Plannin...
Great Fire of London
Started on a Sunday morning. After 4 days the destruction included: - an area of one and a half miles by a half mile - 87 churches - 13,200 houses - only 6 people are recorded as having died (but ...
Holly Village
N6, Swains Lane
This charming Victorian gothic development of 12 Grade 2 listed homes, completed in 1865 was at the southern extremity of the Holly Lodge...
Florence Nightingale
Nurse, statistician, author. Born in Italy (go on, guess which city) while her parents were on the grand tour. Her sister was born one year earlier in Naples, and named Frances Parthenope, the Gree...
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