Eva Carrington

Evelyn Victoria Ann Tate (née Chandler; 1887–1979),^[1][2] known by her stage name Eva Carrington, was an actress, model and sometime peeress as the wife of the Baron de Clifford.^[3]

Eva Carrington, from a 1909 publication

Modelling career

Carrington was born Evelyn Victoria Ann Chandler in London, the daughter of Anglo-Irish Walter Robert Chandler, a messenger and hall porter at the Walsingham House Hotel, Piccadilly, sometime orderly room clerk to Colonel Fred Burnaby. Her mother, Louisa, was a theatre attendant. By 1891, the family were using "Carrington" as their surname.^[1][4][5] Her sister, Gladys Winifred Carrington Chandler, married Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Christopher Humphrey Tancred (1888–1972), grandson of Sir Thomas Tancred, 7th Baronet, a philanthropist and early colonist of Canterbury, New Zealand; their son was the actor Anthony Tancred (1930–1995).^[6]

Carrington was a model for the artist James Whistler between 1898 and 1902. She posed for a number of Whistler's paintings and drawings, including A dancing woman in a pink robe, seen from the back,^[7] The Tambourine,^[8] Eva and Gladys Carrington seated on a sofa,^[9] and The Bead Stringers.^[10][11][12]

Stage career

She became a renowned actress during the Edwardian period. A famous role was as one of the Gibson Girls in the British theatre performance of The Catch of the Season.^[13]

Marriages

Eva married Jack Southwell Russell, 25th Baron de Clifford, in February 1906. She adopted the title Lady de Clifford. This marriage, of a commoner and showgirl to a senior peer, created a scandal at the time.^[13]

Following her first husband's death, she married Captain Arthur Roy Stock of Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire, in 1913; he died in 1915.^[14] In 1922, Eva married George Vernon Tate, grandson of the founder of the Tate Gallery.^[15]

She had several children, and the only son, the eldest child, Edward Southwell Russell, succeeded to the de Clifford barony.^[3] A colour photographic portrait of her and her four daughters by Yevonde taken in 1932 is in the National Portrait Gallery in London.