Ethel Sydney, a Gaiety girl #EdwardianActress #Postcards

 

I discovered Ethel Sydney from someone who responded to my post about The Gaiety Girls and what an interesting discovery she was.  Most Victorian and Edwardian actresses came from theatrical families or at least were supported by their mothers at the outset of their career but Emily Beatrice Lloyd, as she then was, ran away from home to go on stage. Having been born in Burma in 1874, the youngest daughter of Lt-Colonel Malcolm Lloyd of HM Madras Staff Corps she was brought to England at the age of two, by her mother Louise, after her father’s sudden death. In 1893, nineteen year old Ethel married Sydney Douglas Edward Hall, whose father had been an officer of the Bengal cavalry and from this point her acting name was Ethel Sydney. It is in this name that she is listed in the programme of George Edwards’ production of “A Gaiety Girl”.  In newspaper articles she is praised for her ability as a comedy actress as well as her fine singing voice.

When interviewed by The Sketch in 1894 she told of a gold medal awarded to her as champion Lady swimmer of Portsmouth 5 years earlier but now all her ambitions were in musical comedy. 

After playing the title role in The Shop Girl on Broadway in 1895 there was a pause in her career for the birth of her son in 1898. In the 1901 census Ethel is listed in her married name, accompanied by her son Durham Hall staying at the South Shore Hydro, Blackpool along with the cast of the play in which she was performing.  But her marriage did not survive as in 1902 she divorced Sydney Hall, citing his denial of conjugal rights and she later married Samuel Robinson Oliver, a man of independent means. 

However, in 1911 allegations of adultery with John Upton Gaskell were made against Ethel by her husband, Samuel. Guy Oliver, the child she and Samuel Oliver had in 1905, remained in his father’s custody. Once the divorce was finalised, she married John Gaskell and in 1913 they had a son, Peter Upton. At her last three marriages Ethel gave misinformation about her age, probably because she was considerably older than her spouses.

Ethel’s last husband, Alistair Ian Matheson, was at 25, half Ethel’s age but on the marriage certificate in 1924, she is listed as “of full age”. 

  Alistair Matheson had been a 2^nd  Lieutenant during the First World War and then became a commercial artist specialising in animation including the Bonzo cartoon for New Era Films.  Despite the age difference Ethel and Alistair remained together for the rest of her life. Ethel died in London in 1967, her husband a year later.