The Postcard
A Rotary Photographic Series postcard with a divided back. The photography was by Johnston & Hoffmann.
The card was posted in Blackpool on Friday the 21st. June 1907 to:
Miss F. Berresford,
Normanton Hall,
Southwell,
Notts.
The message on the back of the card was as follows:
"Thanks for letter. I hope
we shall see you tomorrow.
We shall get home at about
¼ to 7, so don't go before
we come.
I wish you could stay until
Sunday night.
Love from all,
Gorgonzola".
Miss Eva Moore
Eva Moore (9th. February 1868 – 27th. April 1955) was an English actress. Her career on stage and in film spanned six decades, and she was active in the women's suffrage movement.
In her 1923 book of reminiscences, 'Exits and Entrances', she describes approximately ninety of her rôles in plays, but she continued to act on stage until 1945. She also acted in more than two dozen films. Her daughter, Jill Esmond, was the first wife of Laurence Olivier.
Eva Moore - The Early Years
Moore was born and educated in Brighton, Sussex, the eighth of ten children, the last of whom was the actress Decima Moore. Her parents were the chemist Edward Henry Moore and his wife, Emily (née Strachan) Moore.
She attended Miss Pringle's school in Brighton, and then studied gymnastics and dancing in Liverpool. Returning to Brighton, she taught dancing.
In 1891 she married the actor/playwright Henry V. Esmond (1869–1922). You can see a photo of him if you search for the tag 25HVE26
They had three children: Jack (an actor), Jill (the actress Jill Esmond), and Lynette, who did not survive infancy. Eva's husband wrote more than a dozen plays in which she appeared, and they appeared together in more than a dozen plays.
Moore made her first stage appearance at London's Vaudeville Theatre on the 15th. December 1887, as Varney in 'Proposals'. She next joined Toole's company, and appeared at Toole's Theatre on the 26th. December of that year as the Spirit of Home in 'Dot'.
In 1888, she was back at the Vaudeville in a play with her sisters Jessie and Decima, 'Partners', by Robert Williams Buchanan.
In 1890, she created the role of the Countess of Drumdurris in the Arthur Wing Pinero play 'The Cabinet Minister' at the Court Theatre. In 1892, she appeared as Minestra in the comic opera 'The Mountebanks' by W. S. Gilbert and Alfred Cellier. The next year, she created the role of Pepita in the long-running 'Little Christopher Columbus'.
In 1894, she joined Charles Hawtrey and Lottie Venne in F. C. Burnand's 'A Gay Widow'. Other stage roles included Mabel Vaughn in 'The Wilderness' (1901); Lady Ernestone in Esmond's 'My Lady Cirtue' and Wilhelmina Marr in his 'Billy's Little Love Affair'(both 1903); and Kathie in 'Old Heidelberg' (1902 and 1909) with George Alexander.
Eva Moore - The Later Years
In 1907, Eva took the name part in 'Sweet Kitty Bellaire' (1907) and played Mrs. Errol in 'Little Lord Fauntleroy', Mrs. Crowley in 'The Explorer' in 1908, the Hon. Mrs. Bayle in 'Best People', and Mrs. Rivers in 'The House Opposite' in 1909.
Moore was active in the suffrage movement (as was her sister Decima), attending meetings and appearing in suffragist plays and films.
She was a founder of the Actresses' Franchise League in 1908, but resigned from that organisation when other members objected to her acting in a sketch called 'Her Vote', written by her husband, in which the heroine prefers kisses to votes.
Moore later managed her husband's comedy 'Eliza Comes to Stay', which opened at the Criterion Theatre on the 12th. February 1913, transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre on the 6th. July 1914, and then took the play to New York for an unsuccessful run.
After the First World War began, she continued acting at the Vaudeville in the evenings, but worked as a volunteer during the day for the Women's Emergency Corps, based at the Little Theatre.
She raised money for hospital and wartime causes, and was honoured with the Ordre de la Reine Elisabeth for her wartime activities.
At the Royalty Theatre, she played Mrs. Culver in the 1918 play 'The Title', by Arnold Bennett, where she also played Mrs. Etheridge in 'Caesar's Wife' by W. Somerset Maugham as well as the title role in 'Mumsie'.
Eva Moore's Film Career
From 1920 to 1946, Moore made over two dozen films, beginning with 'The Law Divine' (1920). Some of her best-received silent films were 'Flames of Passion' (1922), 'The Great Well' (1924), 'Chu-Chin-Chow' (1925) and 'Motherland' (1927).
Her most popular 'talkies' included 'Almost a Divorce' (1931), 'The Old Dark House' (1932), 'Leave It to Smith' (1933), 'I Was a Spy' (1933), 'Jew Süss' (1934), 'A Cup of Kindness' (1934), 'Vintage Wine' (1935), 'The Divorce of Lady X' (1938, which starred her son-in-law Laurence Olivier) and 'Of Human Bondage' (1946).
Death of Eva Moore
After retiring, Eva resided at Bisham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, dying of myocardial degeneration at the age of 87.
Edward Bennett
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 21st. June 1907 was not a good day for Edward Hallaran Bennett, because he died in Dublin on that day. Bennett, who was born on the 9th. April 1837 in Charlotte Quay, Cork, was an Irish surgeon, now remembered for describing Bennett's fracture.
He was professor of anatomy and surgery at Trinity College Dublin from 1873 to 1906. He studied fractures, dislocations and bone diseases, recording them at the Pathology Museum in the college.
He described his eponymous fracture at the British Medical Association meeting in Cork in 1880. He is said to have introduced antiseptic technique to Dublin, and became president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Bennett's fracture is a fracture of the base of the first metacarpal bone. This fracture is the most common type of fracture of the thumb,
