Dorothea Baird

Dorothea Baird (20 May 1875 – 24 September 1933) was an English stage and film actress.

Career

Her first stage appearance was with the Oxford University Dramatic Society in February 1894, when she played Iris in The Tempest. She was seen there by Lewis Carroll. On 26 May, he took her to London to see Ellen Terry performing, and then took her backstage to meet Ellen Terry. This inspired her to become a professional actress where she met her future husband, H. B. Irving.

She went on to appear in a number of plays by Shakespeare with her husband. She made her London debut in 1894 as Hippolyta in Ben Greet's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1895, she played the lead role in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's stage play Trilby at the Haymarket Theatre, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by George du Maurier.

She portrayed Mrs. Darling in the original 1904 production of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. In 1910 Baird was performing in The Princess Clementina, a George Pleydell stage version of an A. E. W. Mason novel.

In 1913, she retired from the stage, due to a miscarriage, and involved herself in charitable causes, especially with infant welfare. of which she was a board member for many years. With the help of Percy Nash, Baird created Motherhood to try to help improve the living habits of mothers and infants.

After the death of Sir Henry Irving in 1905, Baird and H.B. decided to form their own theatre company.