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
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...
Harry Houdini
Escape artist. Born Erik Weisz in Budapest. Later names include: Ehrich Weiss, Harry Weiss. The family moved to the US in 1878. He had a very close relationship with his mother, to whom he alwa...
Ruthie Henshall
Actor, dancer and singer. Born in Bromley as Valentine Ruth Henshall. She has appeared in many west end productions, including 'Cats', 'Chicago' and 'Les Miserables'. Nominated five times for an Ol...
Sir Gerald du Maurier
Actor-manager. Born at 27 Church Row, the last and fifth child of George du Maurier. As a child he would pose for his father's drawings. A close associate of J M Barrie he was the first actor to pl...
The Theatre
The site of The Theatre is the tall building to the left in the picture. Often claimed to be the first London building specially devoted to the performance of plays though the Red Lion Theatre in M...
Previously viewed
Queen Elizabeth II
Born 17 Bruton Street, to the Duke and Duchess of York. For information on where she was brought up see Byron Statue. When she was 10 her father became King George VI (on the abdication of his brot...
Northumberland House - St Martin's le Grand
Belonged to King Henry IV who gave it to his wife Queen Jane after which it was called her Wardrobe. It was afterwards a printing-house, and then a tavern. Not to be confused with Northumberland Ho...
Central Foundation Girls School
E3, Bow Road
Below the first floor bay window a large stone frieze is beginning to crumble but still reads: "Stepney & Bow Foundation Coborn Girls...
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...
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
In 1923 Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (descended from the Royal House of Scotland) married Prince Albert, Duke of York, the man who would become George VI when his elder brother Edward VIII abdicated. ...
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