Kyrle Bellew

Harold Kyrle Money Bellew (28 March 1850 – 2 November 1911) was an English stage and silent film actor. He notably toured with Cora Brown-Potter in the 1880s and 1890s, and was cast as the leading man in many stage productions alongside her. He was also a signwriter, gold prospector and rancher mainly in Australia. Early life Bellew was born in Prescot, Lancashire, the son of Rev. John Chippendall Montesquieu Bellew and Eva Maria Bellew (née Money). His mother was a widow at the time of his parents' marriage on 27 March 1847. She was the youngest daughter of Vice-Admiral Rowland Money, C.B., R.N., and Mary Ann Tombs. She married her first husband Henry Edmund Michell Palmer, a soldier in the Indian Army, on 8 February 1843. However, Palmer died of "hill fever" in Madras, India on 9 November 1846. His father was born John Chippendall Higgin in Lancashire on 3 August 1823 to Robert Higgin and Anne Maria Higgin (née Bellew). His lineage was called into question by the Reverend Samuel Gambier, who believed him to be a natural son of his friend and actor, William Macready, whom John Bellew did resemble and correspond with regularly until 1850. In 1844, he changed his name to his mother's maiden name while still a student at St Mary Hall, and he was ordained an Anglican priest in 1848. He was first appointed curate of St Andrew's in Worcester in 1848, and was transferred to Prescot, Lancashire, in 1850. On 17 November 1851, the Bellew family travelled to India on board the Hotspur and moved into a large house on Harrington Street in Calcutta. John Bellew had been appointed as an assistant chaplain to St John's Cathedral in Calcutta, India. Kyrle's parents separated in November 1853, after John Bellew discovered licentious correspondence between Eva and 23-year-old Ashley Eden, a civil servant with the East India Company. John Bellew sued for divorce from Eva on 6 March 1855 on grounds of adultery. Eva counter-sued, claiming ill-treatment. John Bellew named Eden as his wife's lover and was granted a divorce on unequivocal grounds. On 13 August 1861, Kyrle's mother married for a third time, to Ashley Eden and she lived in India until her death on 10 January 1877.