The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Glasgow on Monday the 8th. May 1905 to:
Miss Nadia Robertson,
Giffnock,
Nr. Glasgow.
A Guardian journalist recently wrote of Giffnock:
'Giffnock isn’t a very attractive place.
It’s a featureless and unremarkable
stretch of real estate dominated by
bungalows and red sandstone domiciles'.
The brief message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"8th. May 1905.
From Mother".
Miss Lena Ashwell
Lena Margaret Ashwell, OBE (28th. September 1872 – 13th. March 1957) was a British actress and theatre manager, known as the first to organise large-scale entertainment for troops on the Western Front during the Great War.
Lena Ashwell - The Early Years
She was born Lena Margaret Pocock on the HMS Wellesley Training Ship while anchored in the River Tyne. At the time under her father's command, the ship was a home for 'Boys unconvicted of crime but under suspicion'.
Ashwell's father was Commander Charles Ashwell Boteler Pocock, Royal Navy, and her mother was Sarah Margaret Stevens, who died as a result of an accident in Canada.
Lena, the second youngest of seven siblings, had two brothers and four sisters. One of her siblings died as a child while the family was in New Zealand.
Lena grew up in Canada, and studied music in both Lausanne and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her voice however was insufficient for performance, and she took up acting instead, thereafter styling herself as 'Lena Ashwell'.
In 1891, she debuted in 'The Pharisee', and in 1895 she appeared in 'King Arthur', by J. Comyns Carr, with Dame Ellen Terry and Sir Henry Irving.
She went on to appear in a number of Shakespeare productions, in 'Quo Vadis' (1900), and as the lead in 'Mrs Dane's Defence' (1900) and 'Leah Kleschna' (1905).
In 1906, Ashwell starred in 'The Shulamite', a melodrama about a South African woman in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman. The show ran for 45 performances at the Savoy Theatre between the 12th. May and the 26th. June 1906.
Ashwell took the play to the US, where it ran for just 25 performances at the Lyric Theatre on Broadway. The New York Times critic wrote that Ashwell:
"Had been rather badly handicapped
on her first visit here by a bad play."
Lena Ashwell - The Later Years
Beginning in 1906, Ashwell took up theatre management, initially at the Savoy Theatre, then in 1907 she established her own theatre known as the Kingsway.
In February 1914, Ashwell was one of the founder members of the new United Suffragists group, led by the Pethick-Lawrences.
The Great War
During World War I Lena was an enthusiastic supporter of British war aims. Partly due to the influence of her acquaintance Princess Helena Victoria, and her connections with the YWCA, she was given permission to take a group of entertainers to the Western Front.
In 1915, Lena began to organise companies of actors, singers and entertainers to travel to France and perform; by the end of the war there were 25 of them, travelling in small groups around France.
She organised all-male concert parties to perform shows near to the front line. In her writings about this experience she emphasised that ordinary soldiers had been enthusiastic about high culture – in particular, Shakespeare plays.
In her last years, she embraced the Moral Re-Armament movement.
Divorce and Marriage
Lena married the actor Arthur Playfair in 1896; he began divorce proceedings in 1903 following her adultery with Robert Taber, the former husband of actress Julia Marlowe. Playfair and Ashwell finally divorced in 1908.
She then married the royal obstetrician Sir Henry John Forbes Simson in 1908. Sir Henry had the claim to fame of delivering both the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret.
After Lena's death in 1957, her ashes were buried with her husband in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.
Ashwell's Books
Ashwell wrote four books:
- 'Modern Troubadours' (1922), which is an account
of the work of her concert parties during the First
World War.
- 'Reflections from Shakespeare' (1926), edited from
a series of lectures she gave to raise money for the
Lena Ashwell Players.
- 'The Stage' (1929), her thoughts on the state of the
theatre and the role of the actor.
- An autobiography, 'Myself a Player' (1936).
George Duke
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 8th. May 1905 was not a good day for George Washington Duke, because he died on that day.
George, who was born in North Carolina on the 18th. December 1820, was an American tobacco industrialist and philanthropist who fought in the American Civil War.
George's son provided the initial funds for the institution that ultimately became Duke University. A statue of Washington Duke sits on Duke University's East Campus.
