Gertrude Kingston

Kingston was born in Islington in London, the daughter of merchant Heiman Kohnstamm and his wife, Teresina (née Friedmann), who were Jewish.

[2] Her first theatrical experience was as a child, performing amateur impersonations of famous actors of the day such as Henry Irving and Sarah Bernhardt.

On her marriage in 1889 to Captain George Silver (1858/9–1899) of the East Surrey Regiment, Kingston decided to become a professional actress to support herself and her husband financially.

Ellen Terry suggested that Kingston should enrol in the School of Acting run by actor-manager Sarah Thorne in Margate, and for whom she played Ophelia in Hamlet and Emilia in Othello.

In 1916 she appeared with her own theatrical company in The Queen's Enemies, and in four plays by Shaw: The Inca of Perusalem, Great Catherine, Overruled and How He Lied to Her Husband,[8] and played Ermyntrude in Shaw's The Inca of Perusalem with the Pioneer Players, the Women's suffrage theatre company; for some years she had been a speaker on behalf of the suffrage movement in Britain.

[9] After World War I Kingston returned to Britain where she resumed her acting career, also becoming a regular speaker for the Conservative Party.