{{Short description|British actress}} {{Infobox person | name = Edith Chester | post-nominals = | image = File:Leslie Chester, MET DP840380 (cropped).jpg | alt = Bust-length photographic portrait, looking up to her left, of Edith Morgan Gellibrand | caption = Portrait (cropped) from an 1880s cigarette card, for the stage name Leslie Chester | birth_name = Edith Morgan Gellibrand | birth_date = 1864 | birth_place = | death_date = 1894 | known_for = | education = | occupation = actor | title = | children = | father = Thomas Samuel Gellibrand | mother = }} '''Edith Chester''' (1864–1894; born '''Edith Morgan Gellibrand'''), known also as '''Leslie Chester''', was a British actress.<ref name="BJ">{{cite book |last1=Wildman |first1=Stephen |last2=Burne-Jones |first2=Edward Coley |last3=Christian |first3=John |last4=Crawford |first4=Alan |last5=Cars |first5=Laurence Des |title=Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian Artist-dreamer |date=1998 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-0-87099-858-4 |page=248 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bv4u7Gf7Z38C&pg=PA248 |ref=BJ}}</ref>

==Early life== Chester was born in Arkhangelsk in March 1864;<ref name="BJCR">{{cite web |title=Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné. Portrait Head of Miss Edith Gellibrand, nearly full face for The Golden Stairs |url=https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MjA4MjE= |website=www.eb-j.org}}</ref> she was the second daughter of Thomas Samuel Gellibrand (1820/1–1897, born in Madras), a British timber merchant resident in Russia from 1847 to 1865.<ref name="RM">{{cite news |title=Marriages |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000369/18870402/092/0005 |work=Reading Mercury |date=2 April 1887|page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Timber and Wood-working Machinery |date=1897 |publisher=Middlesex Publishing Company |page=206 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3s42AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA206}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Erik-Amburger-Datenbank - Datensatz anzeigen Gellibrand, Thomas Samuel |url=https://amburger.ios-regensburg.de/index.php?id=82994 |website=amburger.ios-regensburg.de|language=de}}</ref> She came from a family who opposed her wish to go on the stage. Her paternal grandfather was Sheriff of Madras, Thomas Gellibrand (died 1824).<ref>{{cite book |title=Truth |date=1887 |page=283 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OaY6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA283}}</ref>

She has been identified as a model for ''The Golden Stairs'', an 1880 painting by Edward Burne-Jones; but some research suggests the face in question is that of Dorothy Dene.<ref name="BJ"/><ref name="BJCR"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jiminez |first1=Jill Berk |title=Dictionary of Artists' Models |date=15 October 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-95914-2 |page=580 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ogFYAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA580}}</ref> Walter Crane in his memoir ''An Artist's Reminiscences'' (1907) described a sea pleasure trip of the early 1880s, from Brightlingsea to Torquay, in a party where Chester and Calliope Sechiari, daughter of Aglaia Coronio, were the female guests.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crane |first1=Walter |title=An Artist's Reminiscences |date=1907 |publisher=The Macmillan Company |location=New York |page=220 |url=https://archive.org/details/anartistsremini00crangoog/page/220/mode/1up}}</ref> Performances in amateur productions in 1883, under her real name with her sister Lina, gained Chester positive press coverage. At the Londesborough Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, she played Helen Gaythorne in ''Weak Woman'' by Henry James Byron, and Lisette in the after-piece ''The Swiss Cottage'' by Thomas Haynes Bayly.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Theatre |date=1883 |publisher=Wyman & Sons |page=181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7PBqiquucSgC&pg=PA181}}</ref> Appearing in a charity performance at St. George's Hall, London, in Tom Taylor's ''The Serf'', she was pronounced "charming" as Acoulina.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Theater: A Monthly Review and Magazine |date=1884 |publisher=Wyman & Sons |page=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aAo6AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA51}}</ref>

==Actress== Chester made her professional stage debut in the USA, in October 1885.<ref name="Boase">{{cite book |last1=Boase |first1=Frederic |title=Modern English Biography: A-H |date=1960 |publisher=Books on Demand |isbn=978-0-598-96802-9 |page=649}}</ref> She crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool in the SS ''Adriatic'', chaperoned by her mother and accompanied by Agnes Miller, another aspiring actress, in a party with Weedon Grossmith and Brandon Thomas.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brandon-Thomas |first1=Jevan |title=Charley's Aunt's Father: A Life of Brandon Thomas |date=1955 |publisher=Douglas Saunders |page=102 |language=en}}</ref> She again took part in an amateur production at St. George's Hall, in December 1885. A reviewer found her "most bewitching" as Eliza Ravenshaw in ''Time Will Tell'' by Herbert Gardner.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Clement |title=The Theatre |date=1885 |page=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HOgIAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA51}}</ref>

In early 1886, she was in New York playing in the professional company of Rosina Vokes as Leslie Chester, with Weedon Grossmith. A review by Alan Dale of ''A Christmas Pantomime Rehearsal'' commented that "Miss Leslie Chester is so pretty that her dramatic sins can be magnanimously pardoned."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Thomas Allston |title=A History of the New York stage from the first performance in 1732 to 1901 |date=1903 |publisher=New York, Dodd, Mead and company |page=251 |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924082209457/page/251/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Life |date=1882 |publisher=Life |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oh_633Me2RIC&pg=PA24}}</ref> She portrayed Lettice Vane in Henry Hamilton's ''Harvest'' at the Princess's Theatre, London in September that year.<ref name="Boase"/> She created that role, as well as Nan in William Leonard Courtney's ''Kit Marlowe''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=William Davenport |title=A Dictionary of the Drama; A guide to the plays, play-wrights, players, and playhouses of the United Kingdom and America, from the earliest times to the present |date=1904 |publisher=London, Chatto & Windus |page=279|volume=I |url=https://archive.org/details/adictionarydram00adamgoog/page/279/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>{{Who's Who|title=Courtney, William Leonard|id=U195076|access-date=4 May 2023}}</ref> In 1887 she played Lydia Hawthorne during the original long run of ''Dorothy'' at the Prince of Wales's Theatre.<ref>Leslie, Henry J. [https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:12705682 "''Dorothy''"], Theatre Programme, Prince of Wales's Theatre (1887)</ref>

Chester created the part of Lady Orreyed in ''The Second Mrs Tanqueray'' by Arthur Pinero, first performed in 1893.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kaplan |first1=Joel H. |last2=Stowell |first2=Sheila |title=Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes |date=1994 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-49950-7 |page=50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FlSN9B-61EQC&pg=PA50}}</ref> thumb|Edith Chester, 1889 photograph

==Death== Chester (her married name by that time was Edith Earl) died of typhoid fever in Brighton, on 10 November 1894.<ref name="Boase"/> She had recently appeared as Mrs Pattleton, in ''Hot Water'' by Henry Brougham Farnie, an adaptation of ''La Boule'' by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, at the Criterion Theatre.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wearing |first1=J. P. |title=The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel |date=21 November 2013 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-9282-8 |page=223 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nF8pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA223}}</ref>

==Family== Chester was twice married.

*Firstly, in 1887, to Frank Hallowell Carew, son of Benjamin Hallowell Carew of Beddington.<ref name="RM"/> Chester was granted a decree absolute ending this marriage on 30 November 1893.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Carew Divorce |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000206/18931130/075/0007 |work=Manchester Courier |date=30 November 1893|page=7}}</ref> *Secondly, on 12 January 1894, to Loftus Earl.<ref name="Boase"/>

==Notes== {{reflist}} {{commonscategory|Leslie Chester}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Chester, Edith}} Category:1864 births Category:1894 deaths Category:19th-century British actresses Category:British expatriates in the Russian Empire