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Amy Coleridge (25 May 1864 – 4 August 1951) was a British actress who had a successful career playing in Shakespeare's plays in South Africa as well as in her home country. She acted in the companies ofHenry Irving andJohn Martin-Harvey.
She was born as Amy Matilda Cowlrick atSt Pancras in London in 1864,[1] the daughter of Adelaidenée Jackson (1839–) and Charles Cowlrick (1837–1922), a commercial clerk.
She married the English actorWilliam Haviland inChicago on 1 February 1884. They had two children, the actor Frederick Alexander Irwin (1884-1924) and Ellen Winifred Irwin (1887-) but were divorced in 1904 following her adultery with the actorPercy Anstey (1876–1920).[2] In 1886 she and her husband were at theLyceum Theatre in the company ofHenry Irving for whom she played Alice inFaust (1886),[3] Ursula inMuch Ado About Nothing,[4] and Julie Lesurques inThe Lyons Mail (1893).[5] She acted inThe Lady of Lyons alongside her husband inJohn Martin-Harvey'sLyceum Theatre Company tour of the provinces in 1888.[6]
She and Haviland returned to South Africa as members of the Holloway Theatre Company in 1895 where she playedDesdemona inOthello andCordelia inKing Lear on tour.[7] In 1897 she returned to tour South Africa with the Haviland and Lawrence Shakespearian & Dramatic Company in their season of Shakespearian plays directed by her husbandWilliam Haviland and co-starring Haviland and his co-managerGerald Lawrence.
By 1900 she and her husband William Haviland were in London with the company ofJohn Martin-Harvey, for whom she appeared as Marie inLouis XI at theLyceum Theatre (1900),[8] joining him for his sixth tour of America in 1902 in three productions:A Cigarette Maker's Romance,The Children of Kings andThe Only Way.[9][10][11] She appeared opposite Martin-Harvey as Margaret Hungerford inThe Breed of the Treshams (1903).
In 1906, after her divorce from Haviland, she married the actorPercy Anstey.[12] After divorcing Anstey she married Archibald Brough Pearce (1897–1962) in 1915.[13] She is believed to have returned to South Africa to act for Leonard Rayne for some years, later becoming a speech and drama teacher.
Amy Coleridge died inPietermaritzburg, South Africa on 4 August 1951.[citation needed]
