Mabel Terry-Lewis

Who was Mabel Terry-Lewis?

Mabel Gwynedd Terry-Lewis was a British actress and a member of the Terry-Gielgud dynasty of actors of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The daughter of wealthy haberdasher Arthur James Lewis, co-owner of the firm of Lewis & Allenby, who was also a painter, illustrator and musician, and actor Kate Terry, she was the niece of the actors George, Charles, Fred, Marion, Florence and Ellen Terry. Her elder sister, Kate Terry Lewis, was the mother of John Gielgud and Val Gielgud.

Author Lewis Carroll was a friend of Arthur Lewis, and on 24 January 1883 Carroll visited the family home, Moray Lodge, for a performance of a comedietta entitled Lady Barbara's Birthday given by the Lewis' children and those of Ellen Terry. Also present on that occasion was W.S. Gilbert. Carroll wrote of the event:

... Edith was clever and Katie [Terry-Lewis] distinctly good: then Teddie was very good, though a little given to rant: but Mabel [Terry-Lewis] was the gem of the whole thing. I never saw her equal among children, except Ellen Terry herself. She is a born actress.

In 1897 Mabel Terry–Lewis played Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew for the Oxford University Dramatic Society at Oxford. Terry-Lewis made her London stage debut as Lucy Lorimer in Sydney Grundy's A Pair of Spectacles at the Garrick Theatre in 1889.