Chapter 1: ‘Eye-Ree-Nee’ Childhood and Youth, 1893-1921

“Dramatic art and the beauty of the written and spoken word have been the great interests of my life.”[1] That enduring fascination with drama had its beginnings in Irene Rose Mawer’s childhood, when she brought imagined scenes to life around the house and garden. As the youngest of six, Irene (pronounced Eye-Ree-Nee) grew up largely independently, her siblings already absorbed in their own lives: Harry (1874-1936), Walter (born c. 1875), Alice (born 1878), Ralph (born 1886), and Arthur (1888-1953). The considerable age gaps, particularly between Irene and her older brothers, may have made shared play less frequent.

 

In a less affluent household, her older sister, Alice, might have helped care for the toddler, but in the Mawer home the family’s five servants probably played a significant role in looking after her. A studio photograph of Irene aged two shows her in a charming outfit, including a loose, high-waisted dress with decorative ruffles across the chest and sleeves. A few blonde curls peek out from beneath an embroidered bonnet; the image suggests a comfortable, respectable middle-class family. Looking back on those early years, Miss Mawer recalled:

 

“As a child, making plays and acting them all over the house and garden, was almost my only game. Being usually alone, and knowing nothing of ‘Bobblies’ and their training, these ‘actings’ were quite untaught and untrained.”[2]

 

(‘Bobblies’ was her affectionate term for young children who would later attend classes at Ginner-Mawer, so called because they ‘bobbled about’.)

 

When her parents christened Irene into the Anglican Church, she was given the middle name Rose, likely in honour of her mother’s first name. Rosina Alberta Mawer (née Turner, born 1855) came from Sidmouth on the south Devon coast. How she met her husband remains a mystery: Harry Mawer (not Harold, possibly Henry) lived many miles away, in the Yorkshire town of Rotherham. He was the Director of a furniture company and, in one census, was listed simply as ‘Gentleman’. The system of class distinctions was rigid and closely observed, and the way one spoke mattered greatly. Harry was a northerner, Rosina came from the south: did they speak with strong regional accents, or adopt the cultivated tones of the middle class to which they belonged? Irene Mawer herself spoke beautifully and never mentioned having her accent ‘corrected’, so it seems likely her parents also spoke in what we call Received Pronunciation – the clear, well-rounded tones associated with Queen Elizabeth II, or the BBC announcers of that bygone era.

 

Additional clues about Miss Mawer’s social standing come from reports of society weddings published in newspapers and magazines. A detailed account in the Norfolk News of 1897 explains why her sister was not available as her playmate – at the tender age of four, little Irene was one of Alice’s five bridesmaids! The wedding sounded delightful and offered a snapshot of life in the Mawer household. The ceremony was formal, elaborate, and thoroughly fashionable. The bride wore an expensive silk gown: “white mousseline de soie, with lace and white satin ribbon insertions over ivory satin skirt, bodice of the same muslin over satin with ruched transparent sleeves, trimmed with chiffon and ostrich tips; full court train of white broche silk trimmed on one side with chiffon and orange blossom in the shape of a horseshoe and true lover’s knot.” The bridesmaids were equally expensively dressed in “pale green mousseline de soie, embroidered with French handmade black lace over silk of the same colour. They wore hats to match, trimmed with roses, and they carried bouquets of roses of the same colour (dark red).” The column noted more than two hundred elegant gifts, and the couple honeymooned in Switzerland. In those days, the cost of the wedding would have been funded entirely by the bride’s father, hinting at the family’s considerable resources.

 

Irene was a popular bridesmaid. Another family wedding followed three years later, when her cousin Katie wore “ivory satin duchesse with an overskirt of Brussels net and flounces of Brussels appliqué lace … attended by seven child bridesmaids…in frocks of ivory soie de chine with tiny tucks, Valenciennes insertion, and lace over pale pink.”[3] There were only one hundred and thirty valuable presents on this occasion, and the happy couple had to make do with the Channel Islands for their honeymoon. Perhaps her cousin’s family were not quite so well off!

 

At the time of Irene’s birth in 1893, Wandsworth sat on the outskirts of London, in the county of Surrey, and was later absorbed into south-west London near Balham, Battersea, Clapham, Putney, Streatham, and Tooting. London was expanding at a great pace, and Wandsworth Town Bridge over the River Wandle stood as a modern statement of the Industrial Revolution: a lattice-work of iron girders, with a backdrop of docks, coal wharves, distilleries, dye-works, mills for paper, corn, and copper, and factories producing matches or starch. It was a time of rapid change: local landscapes were shifting, job types were changing, and clothing fashions were evolving.

 

Living in Wandsworth meant that Irene was able to attend Putney High School, where both the quality of her education and the insight of her headmistress played crucial roles in shaping her future. Good schooling developed her natural abilities and laid a solid foundation for her future. Wandsworth was also near enough to London for Irene to benefit from impeccable dramatic training, firstly with Madame Flinn and then with Elsie Fogerty.

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