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
Shepherd's Bush Empire
Theatre. Built for impresario Oswald Stoll and designed by Frank Matcham. Amongst its first performers were the Fred Karno troupe featuring Charlie Chaplin. When the appeal of variety shows began t...
Royal Coburg Theatre / Royal Victoria Theatre / Old Vic
This theatre designed by the German architect Rudolphe Cabanel, began life in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre under the patronage of Princess Charlotte of Wales and her husband Prince Leopold of C...
Fortune Theatre - EC1
Knowledge of London says: "One of the earliest theatres, the Fortune Theatre . . . was first opened in 1600 by Philip Henslowe and Edward Allen {Alleyn}. It burnt down in 1621 and was rebuilt soon ...
Sir Ben Kingsley
Actor. Born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snaiton, Yorkshire to an English mother and an Indian Kenyan father. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and also performed with the Royal National Theatre....
Previously viewed
Thanet House / Shaftesbury House
Nos. 35-38 Aldersgate Street, built by Inigo Jones. From British History Online: “formerly the London residence of the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. From them it passed into the family of that clever a...
Battersea Arts Centre fire
Built as Battersea Town Hall this building became became a community arts centre in 1974. Wikipedia has a plan of the ground floor showing the Grand Hall at the rear of the building. This, and t...
Lucien Pissarro
Painter, printmaker and wood engraver. Born in Paris, the eldest child of Camille Pissarro. He visited England on several occasions, becoming a British citizen in 1916. A founder member of the Camd...
William Shakespeare
Born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon. His birth date is usually given as the 23rd, the same date as his death, but all that is actually known is that he was baptised 3 days later, on the 26th. Even...
London County Council
Prior to the LCC London matters were run by church parishes. The LCC was the first directly elected strategic local government body for London. Replaced by the Greater London Council, covering a la...
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