Amy Coleridge
{{Short description|British actress}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
File:Amy Coleridge Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News 1886 (cropped).jpg (1886)]]
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,[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/7814/LNDRG13_77_78-0622/21530253?backurl=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/60367813/person/412134022224/facts/citation/1122186604543/edit/record 1901 England Census for Amy Haviland London: Chelsea - Ancestry.com {{subscription required}}] 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).[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/2465/40243_625988_4438-00000/16617#?imageId=40243_625988_4438-00006 England & Wales, Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1918: 1904 - Ancestry.com {{subscription required}}] 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, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nF8pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 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.[https://theatricalia.com/play/7/the-lady-of-lyons/production/4tf 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.[https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/sa3/index.html 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.[https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Amy-Coleridge/ Amy Coleridge and Broadway (1902) - broadwayworld.com][https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/amy-coleridge-35843 Amy Coleridge and Broadway (1902)] - Internet Broadway Database[https://www.playbill.com/person/amy-coleridge-vault-0000034453 Amy 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.[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/8913/ONS_M19064AZ-1298/6574809 England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915 for Amy Matilda Cowlrick: 1906, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec - Ancestry.com {{subscription required}}] After divorcing Anstey she married Archibald Brough Pearce (1897–1962) in 1915.[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/8913/ONS_M19151AZ-0177/6574808 England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915 for Amy M Cowlrick: 1915, Q1-Jan-Feb-Mar - Ancestry.com {{subscription required}}] 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.{{Cn|date=February 2024}}
References
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Category:Actresses from London
Category:19th-century English actresses
Category:20th-century English actresses
Category:English stage actresses
Category:English Shakespearean actresses
Category:Women of the Victorian era