Lucy Webling
Lucy Webling was an English actress, poet, and novelist born on August 30, 1877, in London. Growing up in a family involved in the arts, she began performing at a young age, joining her sisters in poetry recitations and later appearing in touring productions of notable works, including Frances Hodgson Burnett's plays. Throughout her early career, she engaged with prominent literary figures and was influenced by notable mentors, such as John Ruskin. Webling's literary contributions included a collaborative collection of poems and stories with her sister, which highlighted themes of equality and sexuality, although her romantic poetry did not gain significant critical acclaim.
In 1909, she married actor Walter Jackson McRea and moved to Canada, where she had two children, one of whom sadly died in infancy. After returning to England in 1926, she wrote novels under the pseudonym Lucy Betty MacRaye, with her works addressing social issues like the challenges faced by unwed mothers. Despite demonstrating improved literary quality in her novels, Webling eventually ceased writing. She passed away on December 6, 1952, leaving behind a legacy intertwined with both theatrical and literary pursuits.
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Lucy Webling
Writer
- Born: August 30, 1877
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: December 6, 1952
Biography
Born on August 30, 1877, to businessman Robert James Webling and his wife Maria, Lucy Webling was an English actress, poet, and novelist. Her father owned a jewelry shop in Wellington Terrace, London, where she grew up.
Under the tutelage of their mother, Webling’s sisters gave successful poetry recitations, which Webling joined when she was three years old; in 1882 they even performed privately for the Prince and Princess of Wales. The sisters met many of the day’s celebrities, such as Mark Twain, Lily Langtry, Oscar Wilde, and Robert Browning and were occasionally tutored by influential art critic John Ruskin, who had befriended the family. By the time she was nine, Webling was already appearing in touring stage productions such as Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), moving on to Burnett’s Nixie (1890) and Uncle Mike (1892), both produced by Edward Terry.
Although not otherwise educated, Webling received training in music and dance. She and her sisters Peggy and Rosalind (out of a family of six sisters) toured North America through the mid- 1890’s performing scenes from Shakespearean works and some of Peggy’s dramatic sketches. At about the same time, in 1896, she and Peggy collaborated on Poems and Stories, published in Canada, to which she contributed the poetry and Peggy the fiction. Webling’s romantic poetry expresses a deep appreciation of the beauty of the Canadian landscape, but is not critically well regarded.
Throughout their writing careers, both sisters dealt frankly and openly with issues such as equality and sexuality. However, while her sister Peggy continued to write prolifically, Webling returned to Britain to perform on the stage. In 1898, she appeared at the age of twenty-one in The Ambassadors at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.
In 1909 Webling married an actor, Walter Jackson McRea, an acquaintance of Canadian poet Pauline Johnson (as was the Webling family). They moved to Canada to live. The couple had a daughter who died in infancy, and a son, Louis Drummond, who was born in Ontario in 1915. In 1926, Webling left McRea and returned to England with her young son.
Living in England near her family, Webling turned her hand to writing novels under the name Lucy Betty MacRaye. In 1933 she published One Way Street, a novel in which Webling noted the plight of unwed mothers, and in 1938 published Centre Stage. Although both novels displayed more literary quality than had her previous poetry, Lucy gave up writing even as her sister Peggy continued on with it. Webling died on December 6, 1952.