Lena Ashwell, OBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

(28 September 1872–13 March 1957) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actress and manager

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

, known as the first to organize large-scale entertainment for troops at the front, which she did during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Born Lena Margaret Pocock on the Wellesley while anchored in the River Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

, she was the daughter of Commander Pocock and the sister of Roger Pocock, founder of the Legion of Frontiersmen

Legion of Frontiersmen

The Legion of Frontiersmen is a paramilitary group formed in Britain in 1905 by Roger Pocock, a former Constable with the North-West Mounted Police and Boer War veteran, with its roots firmly set in another era, to bolster the defensive capacity of the British Empire...

. She grew up in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and studied music in both Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

 and at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

 in London. Her voice however was insufficient for performance and she took up acting instead. In 1891, she debuted in The Pharisee, and in 1895 she appeared in King Arthur, by J. Comyns Carr

J. Comyns Carr

Joseph William Comyns Carr was an English drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager....

, with Dame Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry

Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....

 and Sir Henry Irving

Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...

. She went on to appear in a number of Shakespeare productions, in Quo Vadis

Quo vadis

Quo vadis? is a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?" or "Whither goest thou?" The modern usage of the phrase refers to Christian tradition, related in the apocryphal Acts of Peter , in which Saint Peter meets Jesus as Peter is fleeing from likely crucifixion in Rome...

(1900), and as the lead in Mrs Dane's Defence

Mrs Dane's Defence

Mrs. Dane's Defence is a society play in four acts by the British playwright Henry Arthur Jones.-First Performance:...

(1900) and Leah Kleschna (1905). She married the actor Arthur Playfair

Arthur Playfair

Arthur Wyndham Playfair was an English actor and singer. Beginning in Victorian burlesque and comic operas, Playfair became known for his roles in Edwardian musical comedy and, later, in musical revues.-Biography:...

 in 1896; he began divorce proceedings in 1903 following her adultery with Robert Taber

Robert Taber

Robert Schell Taber was an American Broadway actor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.-Biography:...

, the former husband of actress Julia Marlowe

Julia Marlowe

Julia Marlowe was an English-born American actress known for her interpretations of William Shakespeare.-Life and career:...

. Playfair and Ashwell finally divorced in 1908..

Beginning in 1906, she took up theatre management, initially at the Savoy Theatre

Savoy Theatre

The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...

, then in 1907 she established her own theatre known as the Kingsway. She married the royal obstetrician Henry Simpson in 1908. During the First World War she was an enthusiastic supporter of British war aims : in 1915, she began to organize 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 also organized all-male concert parties to perform shows near to the front line. In her writings about this experience she emphasized that ordinary soldiers had been enthusiastic about high culture - in particular, Shakespeare plays.

External links

• bio of Ashwell, with pictures
• http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/360/1/adt-NU20010905.10112402whole.pdfDoctoral thesis on the life and work of Lena Ashwell by Margaret Leask for the University of Sydney
  University of Sydney
  The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
  
  (2000)]