12 Facts About Lena Ashwell

Lena Ashwell grew up in Canada, and studied music in both Lausanne and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Lena Ashwell went on to appear in a number of Shakespeare productions, in Quo Vadis, and as the lead in Mrs Dane's Defence and Leah Kleschna.

In 1906, Lena Ashwell starred in The Shulamite, a melodrama about a South African woman in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman.

Lena Ashwell took the play to the US, where it ran for just 25 performances at the Lyric Theatre on Broadway.

In February 1914, Lena Ashwell was one of the founder members of the new United Suffragists group, led by Frederick and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, and the Harbens which broke away from the moderate NUWSS and the militant WSPU suffragettes, although it welcomed former members of each, and men as well as women who were seeking women's rights.

Lena Ashwell organised all-male concert parties to perform shows near to the front line.

Lena Ashwell was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her efforts in organising such shows.

Lena Ashwell's ashes are buried with her husband in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.

Lena Ashwell was an alcoholic, committed adultery, domestic violence and passed on venereal disease.

Lena Ashwell began divorce proceedings in 1903 following her adultery with Robert Taber, the former husband of actress Julia Marlowe.

Lena Ashwell married the royal obstetrician Sir Henry John Forbes Simson in 1908, who had the claim to fame of delivering both the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret.

Lena Ashwell met him through her cousin, Sir Alfred Fripp, surgeon to the King, who recommended Simson to her.