Ellen Terry

One of the greatest Shakespearean actresses to ever grace the British stage, Ellen Terry’s flamboyant life and vibrant personality are revealed in a tour of the 16th-century house where she spent her last 30 years.

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By Joy Melville

For years, a haberdasher’s shop on one side of a narrow street in Coventry bore the inscription, “Birthplace of Ellen Terry,” while a tripe shop opposite declared itself “the original birthplace.” An equal amount of confusion surrounded her date of birth. A clerical error in filing her birth certificate misled Ellen, throughout her life, into believing she was a year younger than her actual age.

In reality, Ellen Terry, the greatest English actress of the 19th century, was born 150 years ago, on 27th February, 1847. Her parents, Ben and Sarah Terry, lived on the edge of poverty, earning meagre wages as strolling theatrical players who travelled from town to town. Ellen was their second child; six more children survived.

All the Terry children expected to follow their parents on to the stage. As a youngster, Ellen’s pale yellow hair recommended her for her first stage part as the Spirit of the Mustard Pot. But she screamed so forcefully when they tried to squeeze her into the mustard pot costume that her father told her reproachfully she would never become an actress.

Nevertheless, by the age of nine, Ellen appeared on the London stage as Mamillius, the son of King Leontes in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. On the first night, while pulling a go-cart around the stage, she tripped. Weeping, she declared it to be her “first dramatic failure.” The critics, including Lewis Carroll, felt otherwise, calling Terry “a beautiful little creature, who played with remarkable ease and spirit.”

Despite her blooming theatrical career, Ellen willingly sacrificed the stage at age 16 to marry the distinguished painter G.F. Watts, who was 30 years her senior. Watts wrote to a friend to say “I can hardly regret taking the poor child out of her present life and fitting her for a better.” Watts’ masculine charm dazzled Ellen, and a kiss from him overwhelmed her. She once confided: “I was sure that kiss meant giving me a baby.”

Within a year, the marriage had failed. A later deed of separation cited “incompatibility of temper.” Watts agreed to pay Ellen £300 annually, ’so long as she shall lead a chaste life.’ The amount would drop to £200 if she returned to the theatre.

The thought of being abruptly sent back to her parents mortified Ellen. Three years later, defying Victorian moral convention, she eloped with the architect Edward Godwin, called by Oscar Wilde ‘one of the most artistic spirits of the century in England.’

The couple set up house in a cottage in Hertfordshire. Ellen adored country life and was delighted when their daughter, Edith, known as Edy, was born in 1869, followed by a son, Teddy, in 1872. Teddy, with his straw-coloured hair and angelic smile, later broke the hearts of half the women in Europe. Edy, a stalwart small figure, would hit Teddy on the head with a wooden spoon for crying, exhorting him to “be a woman!”

Sadly, Ellen’s domestic bliss did not last. Godwin spent less and less time at home and money grew scarce. When the bailiffs finally seized the cottage in 1874, Ellen, with sadness, accepted an offer to return to the London stage. Her country idyll had come to an end and, within two years, so did her relationship with Godwin.

Fortunately, her professional life proved more successful. She played Portia to great acclaim in 1875, and as Olivia, in an adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, she became the idolized heroine of the London theatre. During its run, Ellen married the attractive actor Charles Kelly, but his heavy drinking soon soured the relationship. After a few years, she later recalled, “I gave him three quarters of what I earned and prayed him to go.”

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