Mabel Beardsley (24 August 1871 – 8 May 1916) was an English Victorian actress and elder sister of the famous illustrator

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...

, who according to her brother's biographer, "achieved mild notoriety for her exotic and flamboyant appearance".Aubrey Beardsley, Henry Maas, John Duncan, W. G. Good, ''The letters of Aubrey Beardsley'', Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1970, , 9780838668849, 472 pages
page 394
/ref>

Life

Mabel was born in Brighton on 24 August 1871. Her father, Vincent Paul Beardsley (1839–1909), was the son of a tradesman; Vincent had no trade himself, however, and instead relied on a private income from an inheritance that he received from his maternal grandfather when he was 21. Vincent's wife, Ellen Agnus Pitt (1846–1932), was the daughter of Surgeon-Major William Pitt of the Indian Army. The Pitts were a well-established and respected family in Brighton, and Beardsley's mother married a man of lesser social status than might have been expected. Soon after their wedding, Vincent was obliged to sell some of his property in order to settle a claim for his "

breach of promise Breach of promise is a common law tort, abolished in many jurisdictions. It was also called breach of contract to marry,N.Y. Civil Rights Act article 8, §§ 80-A to 84. and the remedy awarded was known as heart balm. From at least the Middl ...

" from another woman who claimed that he had promised to marry her. Mabel and her family were living in Ellen's familial home at 12 Buckingham Road at the time of her brother

’s birth. The number of the house in Buckingham Road was 12, but the numbers were changed, and it is now 31. In 1883, her family settled in London, and in the following year, she appeared in public playing at several concerts with her brother Aubrey. Speculation about Aubrey’s sexuality includes rumors of an incestuous relationship with Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried. In 1902, she married fellow actor George Bealby Wright, then about 25 years old, who acted under the name George Bealby. She died on 8 May 1916, and is buried in St. Pancras Cemetery, London.

Friend of W.B. Yeats

Yeats' biographer David Pierce notes of Mabel that: :"According to Yeats, in reference to the

Rhymers' Club The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based male poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894.''The Oxford Companion to English Literature ...

, she was 'practically one of us'; later, she used to attend Yeats's Monday evenings at Woburn Buildings. From 1912, when she was diagnosed as suffering from cancer, until her death in 1916, Yeats was a frequent visitor to her bedside and composed a series of poems on her titled 'Upon a Dying Lady'".

W.B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

' poem "Upon a Dying Lady" is about Mabel.

Media portrayals

In 1982 ''Playhouse'' drama ''Aubrey'', written by

John Selwyn Gilbert John Selwyn Winzer Gilbert (born on 17 March 1943) is a BAFTA nominated British television scriptwriter, director and producer who joined the BBC in 1969 as a Production Director to help to set up the Open University and who between 1979 and 1 ...

, Mabel was portrayed by actress

Rula Lenska Rula Lenska (born Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska, 30 September 1947) is a British actress. She mainly appears in British stage and television productions and is known in the United States for a series of television advertisements in the 1 ...

Appearances

* ''Four Little Girls'' by Walter Stokes Craven, opened at the

Criterion Theatre The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre at Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has a seating capacity of 588. Building the theatre In 1870, the caterers Spiers and Pond began developmen ...

, 17 July 1897.Henry Maas, John Duncan, W.G. Good, ''The Letters of Aubrey Beardsley'', Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1970, , 9780838668849, 472 pages
page 347
/ref> * ''The Queen's Proctor'', Royalty Theatre, June 1896

References

External links

Mabel Beardsley portrait
as an Elizabethan Page (1905) by

Oswald Birley Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley (31 March 1880 – 6 May 1952) was an English portrait painter and royal portraitist in the early part of the 20th century. Early life and family Birley was born in New Zealand to Hugh Francis Birley (1855–19 ...

at Charleston Mano
Mabel Beardsley portrait
(1895) by Jacques-Emile Blanche, oil on canvas, 90.4 x 71.6 cm
Upon a Dying Lady
by W. B. Yeats at bartleby.com
Mabel Beardsley
profile at Studied Monuments blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Beardlsey, Mabel 1871 births 1916 deaths 19th-century British actresses British stage actresses English stage actresses Actresses from Brighton 19th-century English women