The first wife remains unknown. Charles could have passed some of his youth in Ireland, for the Americans alter noted his Irish accent; an accent that is not picked up simply in the home, but in the community. Perhaps Alfred Dillo had taken him there was a child, and in his formative years, acquired that accent, and perhaps a young sweetheart to whom he may have formed an attachment. Other accounts talk of his early days in the North (after a childhood in London), where perhaps he married prior to coming back South. There is a marriage in Scotland of a Mr. Charles Dillon to a Frances Quin, of the 7th of October 1838, in Lanarkshire, though it not possible at the moment to know if this was he. Another possibility, is that of a marriage between a Charles Dillon and Mary Clegg in Manchester of 15th December 1845. I mention these as curiosities, and do not list the numerous Charles Churches that married during the period.
To his second wife is given the larger portion of interest: "Clara." I believe her to have been born as "Rose Kate Roxby"on the 22nd of November 1829, to parents Henry Roxby and wife Clara Beverley, which is odd. We know from the records of the Conquest theatrical family that Ben Conquest (né Oliver) the actor, took as his second wife, Clarissa Bennett, one of several daughters of Joshua Bennett, a Wandsworth coal-merchant who must have earned pretty coin because three of his daughters enrolled as dancing students very early on. One of her classmates, Louisa Coghlan White married the horse-faced actor, Henry Roxby, also known as Mr. Henry Beverley — a name he took after his home town. Louisa and Henry married in 1817, but nine years later i 1826, Henry Roxby married Clarissa Ann Bennett.
It was their daughter —known as Clara Bennett Roxby, that was to marry Charles Dillon on the 27th of January 1854 in Shoreditch; and, in Brighton, on the 4th of March 1863, her mother Clarissa married Benjamin Conquest, after having obtaining a divorce from Henry Roxby on ground of desertion. I assume Louisa, earlier, had suffered a similar fate, if she had not died in childbirth.
The family still recalled that Clarissa the elder had given birth to the first of her and Ben's children, when Clara had given birth to Charles Dillon's first child.
Of the third we know a little, especially that she was not a wife at all, but a mistress, fellow player, and in her foreign tours with Charles, called herself Mrs. Dillon, although she was just plain old Eliza Webb. Well, not quite 'plain old' as she was the daughter of Charles Webb, actor and 'theatrical writer' who had translated — so he claimed — the French "Paillasse" into "Belphegor" for Charles Dillon, which I suspect he didn't; it is far more likely that he re-wrote the tale from the English translation already extant for Ben Webster's version of it, some years earlier. Charles and his brother, Henry Berry Webb were celebrated comedians. Eliza was christened (and named for her mother) in Watling Street London on the 20th of April 1845. She died however on the 13th of December of 1865 in New York, of Typhoid — just twenty years old. Her uncle Henry Berry Webb died two years later, most lamented by the profession. With her brother in Madras, poor Charles Webb, who died in 1889 had been most ably looked after by Alice Grieve who he had married in 1876, presumably after Eliza Señor had died.
No doubt, Charles Dillon's affairs ended his relationship with Clara. She never remarried as far as we know but her daughter Clara married an actor named Henry George.
Which brings us to spouse, or spouse equivalent number four, "Bella Mortimer" born as Isabella Hamilton Mentrup in about 1838 at Sculcoates, Yorkshire. Her father Richard, a master-mariner had died early and her mother Eleanor struggled on with two daughters. Bella married Charles in Cardiff in 1874 but did not live any long measure after that, as she died in 1881.
Clara Dillon died at Durham House, Portsmouth on the 3rd of July 1889.
Dillon was known for pathos and the articulation of emotional agonies — little wonder; his life was full of grievings, partings and ill-conceived investments in many areas.
No comments:
Post a Comment