Name Mabel Beardsley Role Aubrey Beardsley's sister | Siblings Aubrey Beardsley | |
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Died 1916, Kensington, London, United Kingdom | ||
Mabel Beardsley (24 August 1871 – 8 May 1916) was an English Victorian actress, and elder sister of the famous illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, who according to her brother's biographer, "achieved mild notoriety for her exotic and flamboyant appearance".
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Life
Beardsley 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 twenty-one years of age. 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" from another woman who claimed that he had promised to marry her. In 1883 her family settled in London, and in the following year she appeared in public playing at several concerts with her brother, Aubrey.
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 that:
"According to Yeats, in reference to the Rhymers' Club, 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 entitled 'Upon a Dying lady'"W. B. Yeats' poem Upon a Dying Lady is about Mabel Beardsley.
Media portrayals
In the BBC 1982 Playhouse drama Aubrey, written by John Selwyn Gilbert, Beardsley was portrayed by actress Rula Lenska.