Actress. Daughter of Ramón de Silva Ferro, the Chilean consul in London, and his wife Caroline Maria, née Milliken. Through her maternal grandmother she was able to trace her ancestry back to Kenneth Mackenzie, First and last Earl of Seaforth, and King Charles II's mistress Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine. By the age of sixteen she had become an actress and met her future husband, John Martin Harvey, while they were both in Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Company. In 1899 she worked with her husband to develop a stage version of Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" which appeared to huge success as "The Only Way". For this they enlarged the role of Dickens's anonymous seamstress who goes to the guillotine with Sydney Carton (played by Martin Harvey). As "Mimi", and using her stage name "Miss N. de Silva", she appeared with her husband in this role for several decades. She later bought a cottage on the shore at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, and during the Great War turned it into a home where war-worn nurses could rest and recuperate.
Actress. Daughter of Ramón de Silva Ferro, the Chilean consul in London, and his wife Caroline Maria, née Milliken. Through her maternal grandmother she was able to trace her ancestry back to Kenneth Mackenzie, First and last Earl of Seaforth, and King Charles II's mistress Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine. By the age of sixteen she had become an actress and met her future husband, John Martin Harvey, while they were both in Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Company. In 1899 she worked with her husband to develop a stage version of Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" which appeared to huge success as "The Only Way". For this they enlarged the role of Dickens's anonymous seamstress who goes to the guillotine with Sydney Carton (played by Martin Harvey). As "Mimi", and using her stage name "Miss N. de Silva", she appeared with her husband in this role for several decades. She later bought a cottage on the shore at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, and during the Great War turned it into a home where war-worn nurses could rest and recuperate.
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See more Martin-Harvey or de Silva memorials in:
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- London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Martin-Harvey or de Silva
- Greater London Martin-Harvey or de Silva
- England Martin-Harvey or de Silva
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