Terry, Dame (Alice) Ellen 1848-1928
English actress

Born in Coventry, she was the daughter of a provincial actor and the sister of Fred Terry. She appeared on the stage at the age of eight as Mammilius in The Winter's Tale at the Prince's Theatre, London. From 1862 she played in Bristol and after a brief marriage to the painter, G F Watts (1864), and a second retirement from the stage (1868-74) during which her two children by E W Godwin, Edith and Edward Gordon Craig, were born, she established herself as the leading Shakespearean actress in London, dominating the English and US theatre (1878-1902) in partnership with Henry Irving. In 1903 she entered theatre management without Irving and toured and lectured widely. J M Barrie and George Bernard Shaw wrote parts especially for her, such as Lady Cicely Waynflete in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1905). She married Charles Kelly (Wardell) in 1876 and in 1907 the US actor, James Carew. She received the DBE in 1925.