Gertrude Kingston

Gertrude Kingston (24 September 1862 – 7 November 1937) (born Gertrude Angela Kohnstamm) was an actress, an actor-manager and an artist.

Kingston was born in Islington in London, the daughter of merchant Heiman Kohnstamm and his wife, Teresina (née Friedmann). She was the sister of legal author and County Court judge Edwin Max Konstam (1870–1956), born as Edwin Max Kohnstamm. Kingston was privately educated and travelled extensively with her mother and governess. She studied painting in Berlin and Paris and later published three illustrated books.

Her first theatrical experience was as a child, performing amateur impersonations of famous actors of the day such as Henry Irving and Sarah Bernhardt. Aged fifteen W. S. Gilbert selected her to play the lead in an amateur production of Broken Hearts. On her marriage in 1889 to Captain George Silver (1858/9–1899) of the East Surrey Regiment, Kingston decided to become a professional actress in order to support herself and her husband financially. Ellen Terry suggested that Kingston should enrol in the School of Acting run by actor-manager Sarah Thorne in Margate, and for whom she played Ophelia in Hamlet and Emilia in Othello. At this time she also played Penelope in the English-language versions of The Tale of Troy and Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.

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