Honor Brooke

Honor Brooke
Born
Honor Florence Brooke

(1861-10-23)23 October 1861
London, England
Died3 July 1940(1940-07-03) (aged 78)
Berkshire, England
Occupations
PartnerAgnes Valleris
FatherStopford Brooke
Relatives

Honor Florence Brooke (23 October 1861 – 3 July 1940) was a British writer, actor, and social reformer.

Early life and education

Brooke was born on 23 October 1861 in London to Stopford Brooke, an Irish clergyman, royal chaplain and writer, and Emma Diana Brooke (née Wentworth Beaumont; 1831–1874). One of eight siblings, Brooke was the younger sister of the Unitarian minister and politician Stopford Brooke. Brooke was the maternal granddaughter of the politician Thomas Wentworth Beaumont.

Following the death of her mother in 1874, Brooke and her siblings were partially raised by her paternal aunt Cecilia Brooke at the family home at 1 Manchester Square in Marylebone. Educated sporadically at home, Brooke also attended the Camden School for Girls, a school near Swiss Cottage, and a school near Fontainebleau.[better source needed]

Career

Brooke performed regularly. She was described by The Illustrated London News as having "a most beautiful voice, clear and resonant as a bell, with faultless enunciation." The reviewer continued that "to hear her read or recite is an education". On 13 November 1908, alongside others including Lena Ashwell, Brooke performed poems at the Haymarket Theatre in a matinee raising funds to purchase Coleridge Cottage. Her father had played a leading role in securing Wordsworth's former home, Dove Cottage, for preservation and memorial.

Social work

In the 1880s, Brooke helped to nurse her friend Edith Ellis back to wellness following a nervous breakdown, bringing her to stay at Manchester Square. Ellis' husband, Havelock Ellis, later wrote of Brooke's influence:

I do not know how they met, but I know that Miss Brooke, with a self-sacrificing devotion and skill that called out Edith’s deep love, nursed her back to health, brought her into cheerful and cultured society—opening to her the charming refinements of the Brookes’ house in Manchester Square, a notable intellectual centre—and turned her renascent energies into channels of social work in the slums.

In 1890 Brooke founded the Honor Club, intended to provide entertainment and respite for working women. Originally based in Fitzroy Square, the club later moved to 118 Great Titchfield Street, near to Oxford Street. Her sister Evelyn wrote:

Our objects are social as well as educational; and we do not press our members to join classes. After a long day's work what the girls most desire is some quiet place to sit in, which is cheerful and bright and warm, where they can meet their friends, or play games, or listen to music. Rooms are always set aside for rest.

Linked to this was the founding of the Children's Holiday Fund, which provided countryside holidays for the children of poor parents. Brooke led this initiative, inspired by her work and the poverty she witnessed among those in board schools.

Brooke was a member of the Incorporated Stage Society and on the committee of the Women's Protective and Provident League.

Personal life

Brooke was the aunt of Somerset Stopford Brooke and Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor, as well as the sister in law of T. W. Rolleston, L. P. Jacks, Leonard Leslie Brooke.

For 40 years from 1891, she lived with Agnes Valleris (Ellen Agnes Gooddy), a singer and music teacher. The two performed literature recitations along with musical accompaniment together for charity.

Brooke died on 3 July 1940 in Berkshire aged 78. She left £2,000 to the University of London for founding a scholarship in memory of her father, to be called The Stopford Brooke English Literature Scholarship; and £500 each to the West Ham Home and Hostel for Girls and the Canning Town Women's Settlement.

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 "Brooke, Honor F." 1939 Register; Berkshire; Easthampstead Rural District; DUGD. Kew, Richmond: The National Archives. 1939 – via Findmypast.
  2. ↑ "Bracknell". Reading Standard. 6 September 1940. p. 9.
  3. 1 2 "Honor Brooke". Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881; London; Marylebone; Rectory; District 8. Kew, Richmond: The National Archives: 4. 1881.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Webb, R. K. (23 September 2004). "Brooke, Stopford Augustus (1832–1916), preacher and writer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32094. Retrieved 17 August 2026. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. 1 2 Quinn, James (October 2009). "Brooke, Stopford Augustus". Dictionary of Irish Biography (online ed.). Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. doi:10.3318/dib.000993.v1. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  6. 1 2 Rolle, Elisa. "Honor Brooke". Queerplaces. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Brooke, Henry (10 October 2016). "My Great Aunt Honor Brooke". Henry Brooke. Retrieved 15 August 2026.
  8. 1 2 "Music". The Illustrated London News. 1 November 1902.
  9. ↑ Knight, William Angus; St. John, Cynthia Morgan; Wordsworth Collection (1913). Coleridge and Wordsworth in the West country, their friendship, work, and surroundings. Cornell University Library. London, Elkin Mathews.
  10. ↑ Jenkins, Lyndsey (9 April 2020), "Ellis [née Lees], Edith Mary Oldham (1861–1916), writer, lecturer, and socialist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000369546, ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 15 August 2026{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  11. ↑ Elliman, Michael (1986). The Pink Plaque Guide to London. Internet Archive. GMP. ISBN 978-0-85449-026-4.
  12. ↑ Ellis, Havelock (1939). My Life: Autobiography of Havelock Ellis. Internet Archive.
  13. ↑ "The Gospel of Cookery". The Review of Reviews. Vol. 8, no. 5. November 1893.
  14. 1 2 "From Slums to Meadows". Star. 16 June 1892. p. 4.
  15. ↑ Incorporated Stage Society, London (1906). Annual report. Robarts - University of Toronto. London.
  16. ↑ Women's Protective and Provident League (Great Britain) (1888). Women's Protective and Provident League [microform] : established, July 8th, 1874 : for the formation of trade and benefit societies among workwomen. Columbia University Libraries. [Bloomsbury : The League].
  17. ↑ "Bracknell Woman's Will". Wokingham Times. 24 June 1938. p. 2.
  18. ↑ Shaw, George Bernard (1986). Bernard Shaw: the diaries, 1885-1897 with early autobiographical notebooks and diaries, and an abortive 1917 diary. Internet Archive. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-00386-3.
  19. ↑ "Brooke Honor Florence". Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. London: Principal Probate Registry: 574. 1940.
  20. ↑ "Honor F Brooke [death index]". England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. 2c (Q3). London: General Register Office: 1066. 1940.
  21. ↑ "Deaths". The Times. 2 September 1940. p. 7.
  22. ↑ The Critic. Vol. 18. Internet Archive. Open Court Publishing Co. 23 July 1892.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. ↑ Brooke, Honor (January 1893). "Burne-Jones and his Art". The English Illustrated Magazine. Vol. 10.