The Photograph
Maud Jeffries
Maud Evelyn Craven Jeffries, who was born on the 14th. December 1869, was an American actress. Variants on her name included 'Maude' and 'Jeffreys.'
A popular subject for a wide range of theatrical postcards and studio photographs, she was noted for her height, voice, presence, graceful figure, attractive features, expressive eyes, and beautiful face.
She married James Bunbury Nott Osborne, a wealthy Australian grazier, Boer war veteran, and former aide-de-camp to New Zealand's Governor-General. Osborne was so enamoured with Jeffries that he joined her theatrical company in late 1903 in order to press his suit.
Engaged in May 1904, they married in October 1904, and had two children together (one of whom died as an infant).
Jeffries left the stage in 1906, and continued to live a quiet, very happy life, devoted to her family and her beautifully designed gardens, on their family property, "Bowylie", at Gundaroo, NSW, until her death, at the age of 76, from cancer.
An audience favourite wherever she went, Jeffries' performances over a decade in New York, London, Australia, and New Zealand met wide critical acclaim, especially in the role of Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello and, in particular, for her creation of the role of Mercia in Wilson Barrett's masterpiece The Sign of the Cross.
On viewing Jeffries' performance (when just 20) as Almida in Claudian, one critic observed:
"In Maud Jeffries we have an almost ideal
Almida. It is emphatically a part for a young
girl, and Miss Jeffries made it throb with life
and genius.
So youthful an actress so capable of feeling,
not merely interpreting emotion, ought to
and will have a future before her."
-- Maud Jeffries - The Early Years
Jeffries was born at Willow Farm, near Lula in Coahoma County, Mississippi, to James Kenilworth Jeffries, a cotton planter, and his wife Elizabeth Field Jeffries, née Smith.
Maud had three younger brothers: Henry, James K. jnr., and Norman Weathers Jeffries (1877–1959). Norman went with his sister to Australia and New Zealand as part of her theatre company, in 1897, and remained with her company until she left the stage in 1906.
Initially educated at home, and originally intending to become a teacher, from the age of 13 Maud attended the prestigious Miss Higbee's School for Young Ladies in Memphis, Tennessee.
However a change in her family's fortunes meant that a career as a teacher was no longer possible, and her family encouraged her to pursue an acting career.
-- Maud Jeffries' Theatrical Career
From the age of 5, Jeffries regularly entertained her family with recitations; and when she attended Miss Higbee's School, in addition to her elocutionary skills, she also began to display a great talent at music and singing.
When offstage, Jeffries was a somewhat modest and shy person; and, except for (perhaps, only) two occasions throughout her career — in The Memphis Daily Appeal, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer — she refused to be interviewed by the press.
-- Maud Jeffries in the United States (1887–1890)
In October 1887, when Jeffries was just seventeen, she performed in Lizzie Evans's new play, Our Angel, at the New Memphis Theatre.
On the 9th. July 1888, The Memphis Daily Appeal published an interview with Miss Maud Jeffries who was aged 18 at the time:
"Miss Jeffries has been endowed by nature with
the qualities that generally succeed in the dramatic
profession. She has youth, beauty, talent, a fine
voice and striking presence.
Her tall, willowy form, deep black eyes, clear cut
profile, and black hair at once suggest the ideal
representative of the tragic muse.
Miss Jeffries has signed a contract for next season,
on liberal terms, with Miss Lizzie Evans.
It will be remembered that Miss Jeffries made her
debut here last October in "Our Angel", playing
the part of the governess in place of a lady
temporarily indisposed.
Her success was instantaneous, and the press
were liberal in their commendation of her acting.
Miss Evans was much pleased with her work and
urged her to persevere.
Thus encouraged, Miss Jeffries went to New York
last summer, and there pursued her studies under
the direction of Mrs. Emma Waller.
She made rapid progress, and in March succeeded
in getting an engagement to play leading business
with William Hamilton, who was making a tour of
the New England States with a piece called
Rockwood."
Leaving Memphis on the 14th. August 1888 for New York, she joined the Lizzie Evans company; however, within three weeks it was reported that:
"Miss Maud Jeffries has been compelled to
give up her engagement with the Lizzie
Evans company and has returned home for
rest and quiet."
A more detailed account emerged a week later in the Memphis Daily Appeal:
"Miss Maud Jeffries: Illness Compels her
Temporary Retirement from the Stage.
The promising dramatic career of Miss Maud
Jeffries threatens to be abruptly terminated
by an affection of the heart, which makes her
temporary retirement from a life of excitement
imperative.
It will be remembered that she left here for
New York a few weeks ago to join the Evans
company and begin rehearsals of "Rockwood",
which has been rewritten, and placed under
the management of E. J. Evans.
At the second rehearsal Miss Jeffries
succumbed to a nervous strain and fainted
on the stage. Acting under medical advice
she cancelled her engagement and prepared
to return home.
The management tried to persuade her with
a promise to rejoin the company upon her
recovery, but this arrangement she felt
compelled to decline, as it might jeopardize
her reputation as an actress to play under
such physical disadvantages.
She therefore determined to bid a long
farewell to the boards and to seek to regain
her health amid the reposeful associations
and soothing influences of home."
In 1889 Maud went to New York and worked with Augustin Daly's company, playing small parts in plays such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "As You Like It".
Whilst working with Daly's company, she attracted the attention of Wilson Barrett.
-- Maud Jeffries in England (1890–1892)
Jeffries left the United States on the RMS City of Chester on the 6th. August 1890, and arrived at Liverpool ten days later.
Her first appearance on the English stage was in a small part in a new play, The People's Idol, that Barrett had written in collaboration with Victor Widnell.
Maud made her English debut on the 4th. December 1890, in the play's first public performance. It took place on the opening night of The New Olympic Theatre, in London's Drury Lane, an entirely new, purpose-built theatre, which Barrett managed.
In August 1891, Wilson Barrett discovered that, due to a half- forgotten arrangement made several years earlier, his leading lady at the time, "Maud Elmore", was contracted to appear with Morris Abrahams at the Pavilion Theatre for the whole of the 1891/1892 season.
Accordingly within days, it was being reported that:
"Miss Maud Jeffries, a former member
of the Daly Company, is now leading
lady in Mr. Wilson Barrett's company".
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote the following:
"Miss Maud Jeffries: The "Leading Lady" in Tears
Having arrived at Liverpool], Miss Jeffries then went
to London, starting at the Olympic theater … playing
a variety of small parts and understudying some of
the larger ones … and it was shortly after this that
Mr. Barrett experienced some little difficulty about a
leading lady.
Miss Jeffries received an invitation to Mr. Barrett's
home, where a few friends had assembled, and after
dinner, she was asked in a casual way to perform the
end of the second act of "Claudian".
This was done, those present arranging themselves
round and forming an audience, and at the conclusion
they all expressed the utmost pleasure at her
performance.
It was then that Mr. Barrett told her he wished her to
play "leading business". She was so utterly surprised
at the proposition that she burst out sobbing, and
said she would not do it, for she not only felt incapable
of accomplishing it successfully, but she did not believe
in such "jumps".
Miss Jeffries immediately cabled home to America,
telling her parents that she was leaving England by the
next ship.
The following day, as Mr. Barrett knew, she was lunching
with some American friends, and he sent word to them
to do all in their power to persuade her to accept his offer.
Miss Jeffries' friends did nothing but talk to her of the
advantages which would accrue to her from taking such
a position, and, eventually, out of sheer desperation, she
accepted, and it may safely be said has never regretted it."
Perhaps Maud's reaction to Barrett's unexpected announcement was somewhat amplified by the fact that, as a consequence of becoming his leading lady, she had to master a total of 14 leading roles in the space of just three weeks.
Nevertheless she soon settled into her new position, and by the 22nd. October 1891, she was playing Desdemona, to Barrett's Othello, in the first performance of an entirely new production of Shakespeare's Othello, that Barrett had adapted to accommodate Jeffries' "unique new school acting style."
Jeffries was an outstanding success and, throughout the rest of her career, her performances as Desdemona were considered to be amongst her finest roles.
-- Miss Maud Jeffries as Desdemona
Addison Bright wrote the following in The Theatre in December 1891:
"At the close of the fourth act, Mr. Barrett's honours
are shared with Miss Maud Jeffries, the Desdemona.
She is excellent from the beginning, but here her
excellence becomes remarkable.
None could listen unmoved to the tearless grief
expressed in her exquisite delivery of the line "Am I
the motive of these tears, my lord?"
I am disposed to give her inspiration credit for
discovering the source of the deep stream of pathos
that flows through this scene. Ordinarily the interest
in the tragedy begins hereabouts to fail.
But it is scarce too much to affirm that directly Miss
Jeffries appears prominently in the play, it acquires
a vitality at once surprising and delightful. This is partly
owing to the extreme nobility and beauty of her
conception, partly to the fact that a bountiful Nature
has endowed her with a personality equal to the task
of realising that conception, and partly to Mr. Barrett's
subdued tone and harmonious accompaniment, so to
speak, during this touching scene.
The tempest has been sown, the whirlwind will be
reaped anon. Between-whiles there is calm. There
is a moment even when the old worship regains
ascendancy ; when that lovely "weed that smell'st
so sweet" resumes its sway over the aching sense;
when with despairing tenderness Othello clasps
her to his breast.
It is but for a moment. At her innocent question
"What sin have I committed" — "committed", that
word for ages linked with adultery — the crime
and all its revolting images, hideous and maddening
memories, drive from his mind all other thoughts,
and once more loose the torrent of his righteous
wrath and woe.
With the last act comes the most beautiful scene
of all. To double, treble, the tremendous dramatic
appeal, Mr. Barrett opens it with Desdemona's
disrobing and the Willow Song. Full of pathos it
ever has been, but with this addition its pathos is
tenfold.
Such a prelude to the sacrifice renders the murder
piteous in the extreme. It is not often that players of
Shakespeare can move a theatreful to tears, perhaps
therefore it is worth recording that this scene as
interpreted by Miss Jeffries, with faultless feeling for
Desdemona's forlorn sense of desolation, deeply
affects her hearers.
As does the beauty of the picture she creates.
Truly it might be of her, lonely and silent and sad,
that Browning wrote:
'The same great, griefful air,
As stands i' the dusk, on altar that I know,
Left alone with one moonbeam in her cell,
Our Lady of all the Sorrows.'
The pathos of her acting indeed could not be
deepened. Nor could there be improvement in
the child-like innocence with which she combats
Emilia's gross estimate of women's honour.
The whole passage is exquisitely rendered, and
will remain in memory as one of the gems of this
most interesting revival."
By the end of 1896, Jeffries was well-established as Barrett's leading lady, and had played opposite Barrett in a wide range of works, including:
-- Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Othello
-- Ben-my-Chree and The Bondman (stage versions of Hall Caine's novels The Deemster and The Bondman respectively)
-- Brandon Thomas' The Color Sergeant
-- Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman's Chatterton and The Silver King
-- Barrett's The Miser (adapted from a poem, "A Masque", by Silas Weir Mitchell)
-- Barrett's The People's Idol (written in collaboration with Victor Widnell)
-- Barrett's The Acrobat (a version of Charles Dillon's Belphegor)
-- Barrett's Jenny the Barber
-- Henry Arthur Jones's A Clerical Error
-- Barrett's Our Pleasant Sins
-- Barrett's Pharoah
-- Benjamin Thompson's The Stranger
-- W. G. Wills' Claudian
-- James Sheridan Knowles' Virginius
-- Barrett's own masterpiece, The Sign of the Cross
The Sign of the Cross is an 1895 four-act historical tragedy, by Wilson Barrett and popular for several decades. Barrett said that its Christian theme was his attempt to bridge the gap between Church and stage.
The Bulletin posted the following observation on the 12th. February 1896:
"One of the most irresistible tricks of the
beauteous — she really is a beauty —
Maud Jeffries, is her contempt for corsets.
In no play of Wilson Barrett's, up to date,
has the dark-eyed Maud encircled her
voluptuous form in aught but draperies,
and consequently the audience has been
free to revel in the fetching curves of a
real live woman that it wants to cuddle on
the spot, instead of a combination of steel
and whalebone and a woman that had no
'points' different from any other."
-- Maud Jeffries in Australia (1897–1898)
One of the unusual features of the company Barrett brought to Australia in 1897 was that it also contained the brothers of three of his female stars: Norman Jeffries, the brother of Maud Jeffries, Daniel McCarthy, the brother of Lillah McCarthy, and Paul Belmore, the brother of Daisy Belmore (1874–1954).
Barrett's company opened its Australian season for J. C. Williamson at Melbourne's Princess Theatre (18th. December 1897 – 2nd. March 1898), and then went on to Sydney's Her Majesty's Theatre (5th. March - 21st. May 1898), Adelaide's Theatre Royal (4th. – 16th. June 1898), and Perth's Theatre Royal (21st. June – 1st. July 1898).
The company presented a number of different works at each theatre, the first of which was Claudian (with Jeffries as Almida); other works included Hamlet (with Jeffries as Ophelia), Othello (with Jeffries as Desdemona), Virginius (with Jeffries as Virginia), Ben-my-Chree, (with Jeffries as Mona), The Manxman (with Jeffries as Kate Cregeen), and The Silver King (with Jeffries as Nellie Denver).
On the 16th. July 1898, the company left Sydney for Vancouver on the SS Aorangi.
-- Maud Jeffries in Australasia (1903–1906)
Following an arrangement between J. C. Williamson and Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the company of Julius Knight (1863–1941) and Maud Jeffries toured Australasia for four years.
The first performance of the Knight-Jeffries Company in its farewell New Zealand season was a "double bill" of Davy Garrick and Comedy and Tragedy at Christchurch's Theatre Royal on the 22nd. November 1905.
The company performed in Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Masterton, and Auckland, and its final performance was The Lady of Lyons, at Auckland's Her Majesty's Theatre, on Saturday, 17th. February 1906.
The final performance of the Knight-Jeffries Company was with The Lady of Lyons, in Sydney's Palace Theatre, on the 16th. March 1906.
After the final curtain the audience was addressed by Julius Knight, and by Maud Jeffries (in the company of her husband who came from the wings, and was heartily cheered as he stood beside her).
Such was the impact of her Australian stage presence that, a decade later, one social correspondent was recalling Mrs. J. B. N. Osborne as "the handsome and graceful actress, Miss Maud Jeffries", whilst another theatre critic still believed that her performances far outshone those of the current favourite-of-the-day, Melbourne born actress Madge Titheradge.
Even later, in 1917, a racing journalist was recalling her as "the statuesque American actress" who had married the Osborne brother "commonly known as 'Nott' Osborne".
-- Maud Jeffries' Marriage, Children, and Life After the Theatre
Following their engagement in May 1904, Maud married James Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878–1934) — who was, by that time, also a member of her theatrical company — in a quiet, private ceremony, on the 25th. October 1904, at Papani, New Zealand. It was Jeffries' first, and only marriage.
In March 1906, Jeffries retired from the stage and happily devoted herself to a rural life on their family property, "Bowylie", near Gundaroo, New South Wales.
The current homestead, originally known as "Stoneville", was built by the Massy family following the destruction of an earlier building in a bushfire in the 1870's.
It was purchased by the Osborne family in 1896 and renamed "Bowylie". Whilst some aspects of the current gardens were designed by William Guilfoyle, most of the credit for planning and beautifying the gardens must go to Mrs James Osborne, who arrived as a bride in 1904. Mrs Osborne planted the Lambertiana hedges, laid out paths and gardens and kept an eye on extensive additions to the house.
On the 2nd. February 1894, representing herself as "Bertha Jeffreys" from Tasmania, she gave birth to a daughter, Florence Beatrice Jeffreys (1894–1974) in North Carlton, Victoria, Australia.
The child, whose father was never identified, was immediately "taken in" by Patrick Joseph and Harriet Ann Walsh, née Deverson, also of North Carlton, who ran a boarding house for actors.
Although the existence of the child was kept secret from the world in general, her daughter always knew the identity of her mother — whom she met at least once as a child and, after whom, she later named her own daughter.
Maud's 1904 marriage produced two children: a son, James Bedford Jeffries Osborne (1908–1984), and a daughter, Elizabeth Osborne, born on 22 May 1911, who only lived for five weeks.
Later that same year, Maud's three-year-old son contracted diphtheria, and was admitted to the isolation ward at Yass Hospital. A deeply worried Jeffries, although quite well herself, having already experienced the death of her mother (who had died in Memphis, on the 4th. January) and the death of her daughter, went into quarantine with her son, rather than be separated from him.
After several weeks in the hospital, and with the care of his mother, he was well enough for them both to return home.
J.B.N. Osborne
-- J.B.N. Osborne - The Early Years
James Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878–1934) was most often referred to in the press as "J.B.N. Osborne", less often as "James Osborne" and, even, sometimes, as "Nott Osborne."
James was the son, and one of the nine children of Patrick Hill "Pat" Osborne (1832–1902) and Elizabeth Jane "Jeanie" Osborne (1847–1938), née Atkinson. James was born on the 14th. May 1878 in Sydney. He attended Rugby School from 1892 to 1894.
-- J. B. N. Osborne the Soldier
In 1898, Osborne was appointed second lieutenant, in command of the Bungendore troop of the First Australian (Volunteer) Horse Regiment; and, a year later, was proving himself to be not only a smart officer, but a very popular one with the men.
In October 1899, he was one of two members of the New South Wales military forces to be briefly appointed honorary aides-de-camp to the staff of Earl Beauchamp, the Governor of New South Wales, who was also Honorary Colonel-in-Chief of the First Australian Horse Regiment.
James commanded the first troop of the 1st. Australian Horse to be sent to South Africa. Lieutenant Osborne sailed with his troops for South Africa on the S.S. Langton Grange, leaving Newcastle on the 15th. November 1899, arriving in South Africa, at Durban, on the 13th. December 1899.
He was present at the Relief of Kimberley and, in March 1900, left the Australian Horse and took up a commission with the British 16th. Lancers, the regiment of his elder brother, Second Lieutenant Edwin Francis Fitzroy Osborne (1873–1895), who had died four years earlier, of enteric fever, at Lucknow, on the 2nd. September 1895.
Having participated in operations in the Orange Free State and Transvaal, and having seen action at Reit River, Klip Drift, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Poplar Grove, Driefontein, Karee Siding, Belfast and Slingersfontein, Osborne was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with five clasps.
He formally resigned his commission in December 1904.
-- J. B. N. Osborne on Stage and Screen
Later described as "a squatter who took to the stage for the love of a lady", Osborne made his stage debut (as "Nott Osborne"), at the last moment, in the role of Major Doria.
Maud Jeffries was playing the part of Donna Romana Volonna in a performance of The Eternal City at Her Majesty's Theatre on the 23rd. January 1904:
"Mention may be made of Mr Nott Osborne
as Major Doria (Governor of St. Angelo), who,
in making a promising stage debut, though
obviously nervous over the first few words,
displayed a pleasant voice and manner."
In 1918 Osborne played a leading role in Alfred Rolfe's society melodrama, Cupid Camouflaged, a silent movie produced to raise funds for the Red Cross, and starring many members of Sydney Society.
A reviewer of the premiere performance on the 31st. May 1918, noting that, although the movie itself was "distinctly amateurish" overall, did observe that:
"Some of the best work in the
picture is done by Mr. James
Osborne".
-- The Death of J. B. N. Osborne
James Bunbury Nott Osborne died, at the age of 56, in Sydney, on the 24th. June 1934. He was laid to rest at Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, along with his daughter Elizabeth Osborne (1911–1911).
-- Maud Jeffries' Picture Postcards
A constant, and important ongoing source of income for Jeffries was that derived from the sale of a wide range of popular photographic postcards of her, either in the costume of a particular stage role — e.g. as Mercia in The Sign of the Cross, as Kate Cregeen in The Manxman, as Elna in Daughters of Babylon, as Mariamne in Herod; A Tragedy — or studio portraits representing her "off stage".
Photography for the postcards was by by W. & D. Downey amongst others. The postcards featuring Maud's image were produced in England or Australia by J. Beagles & Co., The Philco Publishing Co., and Rotary Photo.
In 1904 it was reported that, even though payment was only six cents per copy, Jeffries had made at least $US10,000 from royalties in less than two years. Several years later, it was estimated that some 200,000 postcards of Jeffries had been sold in Sydney over the 1906 Christmas/New Year period alone.
-- Maud Jeffries: "The Tombstone Angel"
In early 1906 the London Daily Mail reported that one of the most popular postcards of Jeffries — portraying her in the role of Mercia in The Sign of the Cross — was being used as the model for the recently created "winged angel" that was rapidly replacing the "weeping angel" as the most popular item in memorial statuary.
In April 1906, the Melbourne Age announced that:
"Miss Jeffries has instructed her London
solicitors to announce that it is exceedingly
distasteful to her to be associated with
tombstones in any way, and the offending
sculptors are being brought to book for the
liberty they have taken."
Soon, the following (humorous) paragraph was being widely circulated in the Australian press:
"Miss Maud Jeffries denies, through her
solicitors, that she has authorised the
manufacture of marble reproductions
of herself as tombstone angels.
Her solicitors, nevertheless, write from
Angel Court."
-- Chrysanthemum Maud Jeffries
Around 1906, G. Brunning and Sons, a plant nursery in St. Kilda, Victoria, renowned for their chrysanthemum varieties, produced a chrysanthemum which was officially named "Miss Maud Jeffries".
The flower was later described as:
"A decorative Japanese variety of the
purest white, and one of the most
valuable of these for late flowering
and conservatory decoration."
-- Not That Mrs. Osborne
On Sunday the 20th. January 1929, on the way to Redbank Station, Jugiong, near Harden, New South Wales, a motor car driven by a Mr. P. O'Rorke, crashed into an oncoming vehicle in the South Coast town of Narooma.
The driver of the other vehicle, and O'Rorke's passenger, a "Mrs. Osborne", were badly injured and taken to hospital.
Given that the injured woman was a "Mrs. Osborne", from a property somewhere in rural New South Wales, it was immediately assumed that the woman was, indeed, Jeffries, and the news of the accident was widely broadcast in newspapers in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Great Britain, and the British Colonies.
Three days later however, it was revealed that, rather than being the supposed "Mrs. J.B.N. Osborne" of Gundaroo, the accident victim was, in fact, Mrs. Elsie Evelyn Osborne (1878–1930), née Dickenson, of Redbank Station, Jugiong, NSW, the widow of Benjamin Marshall Osborne.
-- The Death of Maud Jeffries
Maud Evelyn Craven Nott, née Jeffries, died of cancer at her family property, "Bowylie" on the 27th. September 1946, aged 76 years.
Maud was privately laid to rest at Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, along with her daughter Elizabeth Osborne (1911 – 1911), and her late husband, James Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878 – 1934).
