Marjery Bryce

Bryce was born at 35 Bryanston Square, Marylebone,{{cite news |title=Births. |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000434/18910623/002/0001 |access-date=22 January 2025 |work=Northern Whig |date=23 June 1891 |page=1 |url-access=subscription}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0996542/bio|title=Margery Bryce|website=IMDb|access-date=2019-10-11}} to Irish-born parents John Annan Bryce, a politician of Ulster-Scots descent, and Violet L'Estrange, of Anglo-Irish descent.{{cite book |title=Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire |date=1921 |publisher=Burke's Peerage Limited. |page=364 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ptB-cS-J54oC&dq=bryce+annan+%22Margaret+Vincentia%22&pg=PA364 |access-date=22 January 2025 |language=en}}

She had two brothers and a sister three years younger, Rosalind, known as 'Tiny'. One brother, Nigel Erskine, died at the age of seventeen. Her other brother Roland, was later to be one of the commissioners in 1922 to lay out the borders for Yugoslavia.

Her father was Liberal MP for the Inverness Burghs, voted against the Conciliation Bill which was to give some women the franchise and wrote letters to the press against women's suffrage. Her mother, Violet held the opposite view and was a cousin to Countess Markievicz and Eva Gore-Booth, both activists for women's rights.{{Cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-violet-who-transformed-garinish-1.638042|title=The Violet who transformed Garinish|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en|access-date=2019-10-11}}

Bryce remained single.

Bryce joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) parade at the age of nineteen{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1016848621|title=Rise up, women! : the remarkable lives of the suffragettes|last=Atkinson|first=Diane|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2018|isbn=9781408844045|location=London|pages=256, 529|oclc=1016848621}} was portraying 'the perfect woman' {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iGjmrHawuYsC&q=suffragette+Bryce+Arc&pg=PR9|title=An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists, and the Body|last=Betterton|first=Rosemary|date=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415110853|pages=49|language=en}} riding on a white horse dressed in full armour with a banner in the style of Joan of Arc,{{Cite web|url=http://www.ornaverum.org/family/bantry/bryce/margaret.html|title=OrnaVerum - Margaret (Margery / Marjorie) Vincentia Bryce|website=ornaverum.org|access-date=2019-10-11}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/17233993|title=The spectacle of women : imagery of the suffrage campaign, 1907-14|last=Tickner|first=Lisa|date=1988|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=0226802450|location=Chicago|pages=327|oclc=17233993}} leading the forty thousand strong Women's Procession on 17 June 1911,{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57144473|title=The militant suffrage movement : citizenship and resistance in Britain, 1860-1930|last=Mayhall|first=Laura E. Nym|date=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195347838|location=[Oxford]|pages=88|oclc=57144473}} before George V's Coronation. Her sister Rosalind "Tiny" Bryce was dressed as a page and led the horse's bridle. This demonstration was to encourage support of the proposed Conciliation Bill, which would have given the franchise to women who owned property.{{Cite web|url=http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image/79092/the-suffragette-marjorie-annan-bryce-representing-joan-of-arc-1911|title=The Suffragette Marjorie Annan Bryce representing Joan of Arc: 1911|website=Museum of London Prints|language=en|access-date=2019-10-11}}

The image of Saint Joan was seen to represent 'the militant women's ideal....in every act of hers they recognize the same spirit as that which strengthens them to risk their liberty and endure torture for the sake of freedom'. And the leaders of WSPU, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Mabel Tuke led the parade, with groups of women's trades and professions, or, like Bryce, dressed as famous women from the past. Christabel in particular felt the image of Joan of Arc included the willingness to undertake physical hardship and emphasised the martial (masculine) qualities as an image of fighting for a cause of right.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57144473|title=The militant suffrage movement : citizenship and resistance in Britain, 1860-1930|last=Mayhall|first=Laura E. Nym|date=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195347838|location=[Oxford]|pages=87|oclc=57144473}} This was summed up a ' the loveliness of simplicity, purity, courage and militancy' which Bryce was acting in this parade and was an image used by WSPU as a symbol.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1104035820|title=Sex, suffrage and the stage : first-wave feminism in British theatre|last=Hill|first=Leslie|publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education|year=2018|isbn=9781137509239|location=London|pages=157|oclc=1104035820}}

File:Suffragette Procession, 1911. (22923470965).jpg

The Museum of London has the original copyright image of Bryce as Joan of Arc cited in many of the references above.{{Cite web|url=http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image/79092/the-suffragette-marjorie-annan-bryce-representing-joan-of-arc-1911|title=The Suffragette Marjorie Annan Bryce representing Joan of Arc: 1911|website=Museum of London Prints|language=en|id=001466|access-date=2019-10-11}}

In other suffragette parades, Joan of Arc was also portrayed by Elsie Howey.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/907495327|title=The suffragette : the history of the women's militant suffrage movement|last=Pankhurst|first=Sylvia E (Estelle Sylvia)|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|year=2015|isbn=9780486804842|edition=Dover |location=Mineola, New York|pages=367|oclc=907495327}}

Bryce played the London stage for example, in the role of Nina Zarechnaya in The Seagull (1919), appeared in The Cloud that Lifted (1932) after performing in Other Gates in the Grafton Theatre, London in 1931,{{Cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0996542/otherworks|title=Margery Bryce|website=IMDb|access-date=2019-10-11}} and was the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (in 1938 and again in 1947).

In 1927 she took the role of 'The Spirit of Henley' in the Henley Historical Pageant.{{Cite web|title=Oxfordshire History Centre blog|url=https://www.oxfordshirehistory.org.uk/public/blog/blog_011.htm|access-date=2021-08-08|website=www.oxfordshirehistory.org.uk}}

Her entry in 1939 The Spotlight theatrical casting directory describes her as a straight, comedy or character performer.

Bryce was later known for her roles in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers (1949),{{Citation|title=Ten Little Niggers|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286208/|access-date=2019-10-11}} appearing in BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950s){{Citation|title=BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (TV Series 1950–1959) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0989125/fullcredits|access-date=2019-10-11}} and appeared in a BBC series The Bell Family (1951).{{Citation|title=The Bell Family (TV Series 1951– ) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1346917/fullcredits|access-date=2019-10-11}}

Bryce died on 8 June 1973, at Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, London.{{cite news |title= Deaths |work=The Times |date=13 June 1973 |page= 34}}

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Category:20th-century British actresses

Category:1891 births

Category:1973 deaths

Category:Women's Social and Political Union

Category:British women's rights activists

Category:Actresses from London

Category:People from Marylebone

Category:Actors from the City of Westminster