Kate Terry

Kate Terry (21 April 1844 – 6 January 1924) was an English actress. The elder sister of the actress Ellen Terry, she was born into a theatrical family, made her debut when still a child, became a leading lady in her own right, and left the stage in 1867 to marry. In retirement she commented that she was 20 years on the stage, yet left it when she was only 23. Her grandson was Sir John Gielgud.

Terry was born in England into a theatrical family. Her parents, Benjamin (1818–1896) and Sarah (née Ballard; 1817–1892), were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth. Kate was the oldest surviving child of eleven, five of whom became actors: Ellen, Florence, Fred, Kate and Marion. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theatre management. Terry's grandson, John Gielgud, became one of the twentieth century's most respected actors.

Terry began her career as a child actress in Bristol and then with the company of Charles Kean in Shakespeare productions at London's Princess's Theatre, where in 1851 she made her London debut playing Robin in a juvenile production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and in 1852 she played the juvenile role of Prince Arthur in King John. She repeated the part in a command performance for Queen Victoria. The historian and poet Lord Macaulay was present and wrote in his diary that it was "worth having passed middle age to have seen little Kate Terry as Prince Arthur."

Terry played Ariel in The Tempest in 1857, and in 1858, when she was only 15, Kean gave her an adult role, Cordelia in King Lear. Beginning in 1859, she toured for two years with her sister Ellen, accompanied by their parents and a musician, in "the kind of entertainment of which the German Reed productions were the last surviving examples, an entertainment of duologues and recitations, given in town halls and assembly rooms for the benefit of those people who like to be amused but would never consent to enter a theatre." In 1861, she returned to London to play Ophelia in Hamlet. Over the next five years, she performed at several theatres in the West End, becoming one of the best-known leading ladies in London. At the Lyceum Theatre, she appeared in The Duke's Motto in 1863 and Bel Demonio in 1864. At the Olympic Theatre the same year, she appeared in The Hidden Hand. In 1863 Charles Dickens said of her performance in The Lady of Lyons, "That is the very best piece of womanly tenderness I have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no audience can miss it."

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