Amy Coleridge (25 May 1864 – 4 August 1951) was a British actress who had a successful career playing in Shakespeare's plays in South Africa as well as in her home country. She acted in the companies of Henry Irving and John Martin-Harvey.
Biography
Early life She was born as Amy Matilda Cowlrick at St Pancras in London in 1864,1901 England Census for Amy Haviland London: Chelsea - Ancestry.com the daughter of Adelaide née Jackson (1839–) and Charles Cowlrick (1837–1922), a commercial clerk.
First marriage and acting career (1884 – 1906) She married the English actor William Haviland in Chicago on 1 February 1884. They had two children, the actor Frederick Alexander Irwin (1884-1924) and Ellen Winifred Irwin (1887-) but were divorced in 1904 following her adultery with the actor Percy Anstey (1876–1920).England & Wales, Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1918: 1904 - Ancestry.com In 1886 she and her husband were at the Lyceum Theatre in the company of Henry Irving for whom she played Alice in Faust (1886),Programme for Henry Irving's production of Faust - 16 April 1887 - the Glenn Christodoulou Theatre Collection Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing,J. P. Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, Rowman & Littlefield (2014) - Google Books p. 49 and Julie Lesurques in The Lyons Mail (1893).Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899, p. 162 She acted in The Lady of Lyons alongside her husband in John Martin-Harvey's Lyceum Theatre Company tour of the provinces in 1888.Tour of The Lady of Lyons (1888) - Theatricalia website
She and Haviland returned to South Africa as members of the Holloway Theatre Company in 1895 where she played Desdemona in Othello and Cordelia in King Lear on tour.Shakespeare in South Africa: The Earlier Twentieth Century - Internet Shakespeare Editions In 1897 she returned to tour South Africa with the Haviland and Lawrence Shakespearian & Dramatic Company in their season of Shakespearian plays directed by her husband William Haviland and co-starring Haviland and his co-manager Gerald Lawrence.
By 1900 she and her husband William Haviland were in London with the company of John Martin-Harvey, for whom she appeared as Marie in Louis XI at the Lyceum Theatre (1900),Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899, p. 16 joining him for his sixth tour of America in 1902 in three productions: A Cigarette Maker's Romance, The Children of Kings and The Only Way.Amy Coleridge and Broadway (1902) - broadwayworld.comAmy Coleridge and Broadway (1902) - Internet Broadway DatabaseAmy Coleridge - Playbill She appeared opposite Martin-Harvey as Margaret Hungerford in The Breed of the Treshams (1903).
Second marriage and later life (1906 – 1951) In 1906, after her divorce from Haviland, she married the actor Percy Anstey.England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915 for Amy Matilda Cowlrick: 1906, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec - Ancestry.com After divorcing Anstey she married Archibald Brough Pearce (1897–1962) in 1915.England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915 for Amy M Cowlrick: 1915, Q1-Jan-Feb-Mar - Ancestry.com She is believed to have returned to South Africa to act for Leonard Rayne for some years, later becoming a speech and drama teacher.
Amy Coleridge died in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on 4 August 1951.
References