Drama Queen Scenes
What do you do to banish the January blues? If you’re an Edwardian lady you head to a big Country House and put on a play apparently!
Check out this scrapbook we unearthed from the room we call the Locked Room of Mysteries- a room stuffed with old papers, maps and bit and bobs, where you never know quite what you might unearth! It looks like this weighty tome belonged to Evelyn Maud Benyon who was born in 1893, and it contains memories and musings from the year 1905 to 1914 when she was about 21, on the eve of World War 1.
There are lots of wonderful hand drawn pictures of people she has met and places she has visited (including some of the grand houses of the day), signatures, event programmes for the races and the like, and newspaper cuttings. At some point Evelyn took up amateur dramatics and there are some fabulous photos of her and the casts with whom she performed.
In January 1910, when she would have been just 17, she found herself at Ugbrooke Park in Chudleigh, Devon, performing a small part alongside her illustrious host Lord Clifford who seems to have taken enthusiastic part in the plays.
A complimentary review saved!
She must have been a hit as she performed there every January after until war interrupted play.
In January 1911 it was Bernard Shaw's "You Never Can Tell" and Aladdin. There was effusive praise from the (unknown but local?!) newspapers for Evelyn which she ensured to cut out and paste in! While one journalist commented she was "a lovely girl" another went as far as to say "Her imagined impregnability to the puny attacks of weak sentimentality and "love" and her subsequent surrender sans reserve on the shoulder of Valentine were a study in womanliness"!
In January 1912 (although we cannot be sure of the date but surrounding cuttings put it sometime before between Dec 9th 1911 and Jan 9th 1912) it was another double bill. This time "Arsene Lupin" and "Bluebeard". Along with some wonderful posed cast shots Evelyn keeps the cutting mentioning her as a "chic and dainty actor"!
In January 1913 (we assume, although again it is undated) they performed “The Dollar Princess”. Top billing must surely have gone to Charles Scott-Gatty who made a “screamingly funny Bulger”!
The last Ugbrooke performance, "The Duchess of Dantzic", was likely in January 1914 (again, undated but other clippings suggest the date). There are no newspaper cuttings this time mentioning Evelyn (did her performance of laundress not merit a mention?!) but she's collected plenty of cast signatures- was she anticipating they would become famous or is this the Edwardian lady's equivalent of getting everyone in your year group to sign your school shirt when you graduate? Rather poignant considering what was coming over the horizon anyway.
This and the facing page, recording other dramatic performances in December 1913 and February 1914, are the last pages in the scrapbook. By the following year there was already enough drama in everyone's lives as war would break out in August 1914.
Evelyn herself would soon marry Captain Richard Godolphin Hume Chaloner in June 1914, having a daughter Diana by him in 1915, before he was killed in the war. She went on to marry John Clement Wolstan Francis, who would later inherit Quy Hall, in May 1918.
A later, rather dignified, Evelyn Maud Francis nee Benyon
Head to our instagram page to see the scrapbook pages "in action" and keep an eye out for further updates on Evelyn's scrapbook and the Locked Room of Mysteries!