List of Upstairs, Downstairs (1971 TV series) characters
In the summer of 1906, she has an affair with a much younger man, Charles Victor Hammond, a captain in the Khyber Rifles and a friend of her son James.
He has a brief, steamy affair with a Vienna-born French Countess de Ternay, which ends on wistfully friendly terms when they both realise neither has the wealth that their public appearances imply.
Experimenting with socialism and women's liberation without an understanding of the true costs of activism, she marries penniless and sexually ambiguous poet Lawrence Kirbridge.
Elizabeth fails to read her true situation, seeing the gift as loving support of her new-found equality: meanwhile, the businessman uses his new connections to court a Marchioness.
She meets Richard when she asks for help to establish a fund for the children of naval officers killed in battle, and they initially dislike each other.
Virginia returns about a year later, when her seventeen-year-old son Michael (who is at that time serving as a midshipman aboard a British Navy coastal patrol boat) is court-martialled for cowardice.
Her husband also had a brother and at least one nephew, who succeeded Hugo as Earl of Southwold in 1912 when he and his sister Lady Marjorie died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
A meek, quiet, and decent man known to his friends as Bunny, he marries Lady Diana Russell in 1912 having inherited his title and estates the previous year.
Dominated by his spouse, he is happiest playing his expected role of a traditional English country squire, a duty described by his wife as "scratching the backs of pigs with a glazed look in his eye."
At a weekend hunting party at Somerby Park in 1913, Diana, jealous and contemptuous of James' middle-class wife Hazel, secretly switches horses on her, nearly causing a disastrous accident.
Diana's plans are thwarted and a divorce scandal looms; James offers to marry her but confesses that the war destroyed the man she once knew and that he cannot 'get on' with life, content instead to watch it go by.
Portrayed by Donald Burton, Julius Karekin (born 1875) is a wealthy social climber and a very knowledgeable and talented stockbroker of Armenian descent, who has an affair with the recently separated Elizabeth Kirbridge.
He saves Elizabeth from imprisonment by mentioning her family and connections to the police after she takes part in a suffragette attack on a government minister's London home.
He uses her to further his career and contacts, and gives Elizabeth a hat shop in Mayfair's Brook Street, and successfully manages the stocks she inherited from a recently deceased great-aunt.
To further his influence, Karekin buys the lease on 165 Eaton Place when it is put up for sale upon Lord Southwold's death, subsequently giving the deed to Elizabeth to help save her parents from eviction.
Owing to Richard Bellamy's connections, he becomes a good friend of Arthur Balfour, financial adviser to the Tory Party, and a candidate for membership in the exclusive Pall Mall men's club, the Athenaeum.
Portrayed by Madeleine Cannon, Lady Dorothy "Dolly" Beatrice Louisa Hale is one of Georgina's closest friends and a fellow "Bright Young Thing".
Subsequent series refer to an aging husband named Archie who dies off screen leaving her a widow; she attends Elizabeth's 1909 wedding with Agatha (her only appearance during the entire run, but with no dialogue).
A social climbing colonial of Dutch descent, Mrs. Van Groeben (born 1862) is a haughty and unpleasant nouveau riche woman from Cape Town, South Africa.
Mrs. Van Groeben employs a young footman named William, whom she adopted from an orphanage (while she was still in South Africa) and appears to be overly fond of.
When three months later Elizabeth seeks an annulment, the affair and a surprise pregnancy come to light, and to avoid scandal Lawrence is given an allowance and sent abroad, to return only for the sake of appearances at the baby's christening, where he accepts paternity.
Portrayed by Christopher Beeny, Edward Barnes (born 24 January 1889) replaces Alfred as footman in 1906, and stays until he leaves to go to war in 1915, having just married Daisy.
Portrayed by Evin Crowley, the devout Catholic Irish kitchen maid Aoibhinn (pronunciation the same as the Anglicised version of the actress's name) is known in the house as Emily (1881–1907).
She is completely lost without William, and when he cruelly ignores her on his next visit to the house and returns her love letter unopened, Emily is so distraught that she commits suicide.
He is portrayed by Gordon Jackson, who won an Emmy (Supporting Actor, Single Performance, Comedy or Drama Series, for the episode "The Beastly Hun.").
Portrayed by Karen Dotrice, Lily Hawkins (born circa 1901 in Shoreditch, London) arrives at Eaton Place as under house parlour maid in January or May 1919 to replace Daisy, who has left for a new life with Edward.
", Mrs Bridges mentions a husband who died fifteen years previously; and in the episode featuring a visit to the house by King Edward VII, Lady Marjorie states that their cook was not a French chef but "a temperamental widow from Bristol."
According to the narrative, Pearce does not like new-fangled motor cars, and returns to his previous position as head groom to Lady Wanborough tending to her stables.
In the revival series, Upstairs, Downstairs (2010), in 1936, Rose is running her own domestic service agency but is persuaded to return to 165 Eaton Place and serve as housekeeper for its new household.
When the Kirbridge marriage ends, Thomas becomes chauffeur to the Bellamys at Eaton Place where he ultimately blackmails Richard and Lady Marjorie, and leaves service to marry Sarah and to set up a garage business together.
