A popular subject for a wide range of theatrical post-cards and studio photographs, she was noted for her height,[1] voice, presence, graceful figure, attractive features, expressive eyes, and beautiful face.

[8] Initially educated at home, and originally intending to become a teacher, from the age of 13 she attended the prestigious Miss Higbee's School for Young Ladies in Memphis, Tennessee.

[10] From the age of 5, Jeffries regularly entertained her family with recitations;[10] and, once at Miss Higbee's School for Young Ladies, in addition to her elocutionary skills, she also began to display a great talent at music,[11] and at singing.

[12] Apparently, when offstage, Jeffries was a somewhat modest and shy person;[13] and, except for (perhaps, only) two occasions throughout her career — in The Memphis Daily Appeal of 9 July 1888,[14] and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, of 19 December 1897[10] — she refused to be interviewed by the press.

It will be remembered that Miss Jeffries made her debut here last October in "Our Angel", playing the part of the governess in place of a lady temporarily indisposed.

She made rapid progress, and in March succeeded in getting an engagement to play leading business with William Hamilton, who was making a tour of the New England States with a piece called "Rockwood".Leaving Memphis on 14 August 1888 for New York,[16] she joined the Lizzie Evans company; however, within three weeks it was reported that "Miss Maud Jeffries has been compelled to give up her engagement with the Lizzie Evans company and has returned home for rest and quiet"[17] — with a more detailed account emerging a week later: Miss Maud Jeffries: Illness Compels her Temporary Retirement from the Stage The promising dramatic career of Miss Maud Jeffries threatens to be abruptly terminated by an affection of the heart, which make her temporary retirement from a life of excitement imperative.

It will be remembered that she led here for New York a few weeks ago to join the Evans company and begin rehearsals in "Rockwood", which has been rewritten, and placed under the management of E.J.

The management tried to persuade her with a promise to rejoin the company upon her recovery, but this arrangement she felt compelled to decline, as it might jeopardize her reputation as an actress to play under such physical disadvantages.

She therefore determined to bid a long farewell to the boards and to seek to regain her health amid the reposeful associations and soothing influences of home.In 1889 she went to New York and worked with Augustin Daly's company, playing small parts in pays such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "As You Like It".

In August 1891, Wilson Barrett discovered that, due to a half forgotten arrangement made several years earlier, his leading lady at the time, "Maud Elmore",[21] was contracted to appear with Morris Abrahams at the Pavilion Theatre for the whole of the 1891/1892 season.

Miss Jeffries received an invitation to Mr. Barrett's home, where a few friends had assembled, and after dinner, she was asked in a casual way to give the end of the second act of "Claudian".

There is a moment even when the old worship regains ascendancy ; when that lovely "weed that smell'st so sweet" resumes its sway over the aching sense; when with despairing tenderness Othello clasps her to his breast.

It is not often that players of Shakespeare can move a theatreful to tears, perhaps therefore it is worth recording that this scene as interpreted by Miss Jeffries, with faultless feeling for Desdemona's forlorn sense of desolation, deeply affects her hearers.

Truly it might be of her, lonely and silent and sad, that Browning wrote: The same great, griefful air, As stands i' the dusk, on altar that I know, Left alone with one moonbeam in her cell, Our Lady of all the Sorrows.

The whole passage is exquisitely rendered, and will remain in memory as one of the gems of this most interesting revival …Barrett's 1892/1893 tour opened in Philadelphia, on 21 November 1892, at the Duquesne Theater, with a performance of Hamlet.

Jeffries was involved in the creation of Wilson Barrett's play The Sign of the Cross,[2] which was originally produced at the Grand Opera House, St. Louis, Missouri on 28 March 1895.

The first performance of the Knight-Jeffries Company in its farewell New Zealand season was a "double bill" of Davy Garrick and Comedy and Tragedy at Christchurch's Theatre Royal on 22 November 1905.

After the final curtain the audience was addressed by Julius Knight, and by Maud Jeffries (in the company of her husband "who came from the wings, and was heartily cheered as he stood beside her").

[58] In early 1898, Osborne was appointed second lieutenant,[59] in command of the Bungendore troop of the First Australian (Volunteer) Horse Regiment;[60] and, a year later, "was proving [himself to be] not only a smart officer, but a very popular one with the men".

[67] He was present at the Relief of Kimberley and, in March 1900, left the Australian Horse and took up a commission with the British 16th Lancers:[68] the regiment of his elder brother, Second Lieutenant Edwin Francis Fitzroy Osborne (1873–1895), who had died four years earlier, of enteric fever, at Lucknow, on 2 September 1895.

[71] Having participated in operations in the Orange Free State and Transvaal, and having seen action at Reit River, Klip Drift, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Poplar Grove, Driefontein, Karee Siding, Belfast and Slingersfontein, Osborne was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with five clasps.

[74] In 1901, appointed to the rank of captain, he served as the aide-de-camp to Earl Ranfurly, the Governor-General of New Zealand,[75] in particular, during the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later, King George V and Queen Mary) in June 1901.

[86] Following their engagement in May 1904,[88] she married James Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878–1934) — who was, by that time, also a member of her theatrical company — in a quiet, private ceremony,[89] on 25 October 1904, at Papani, New Zealand.

[91] In March 1906, Jeffries retired from the stage and happily devoted herself to a rural life on their family property, "Bowylie",[92] near Gundaroo, New South Wales.

The child, whose father was never identified, was immediately "taken in" by Patrick Joseph and Harriet Ann Walsh, née Deverson, also of North Carlton, who ran a boarding house for actors.

[116] In April, the Melbourne Age announced that "Miss Jeffries has instructed her London solicitors to announce that it is exceedingly distasteful to her to be associated with tombstones in any way, and the offending sculptors are being brought to book for the liberty they have taken";[117][118] and, soon, the following (humorous) paragraph was being widely circulated in the Australian press: "Miss Maud Jeffries denies, through her solicitors, that she has authorised the manufacture of marble reproductions of herself as tombstone angels.

[123] Maud Evelyn Craven Nott, née Jeffries, died of cancer, at her family property, "Bowylie", at Gundaroo, on 27 September 1946, aged 76 years.