Elizabeth Bellamy
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Elizabeth Kirbridge (née Bellamy, later Wallace; 1886–?) was a fictional character in the ITV drama Upstairs, Downstairs. She was usually known as "Miss Elizabeth" or "Miss Lizzie" even after her marriage. She was portrayed by Nicola Pagett.
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[edit] Early life
Elizabeth was born in 1886 to Richard Bellamy, a Conservative MP and Lady Marjorie Bellamy, daughter of the 12th Earl of Southwold, a prominent Conservative politician. She finished her education at Frau Beck's Finishing School, in Dresden, Germany in 1905, and her coming out ball was in May that year at Londonderry House. She was due to be presented to the King and Queen by her Aunt Kate (Lady Castleton), but ran away from the Ball.
In December 1905, she fell in love with Baron Klaus von Rimmer, a German who turned out to be a spy. He fled Eaton Place, with the footman Alfred, before the police arrived to arrest him.
Elizabeth was a member of the Young Women's Christian Fellowship, and while working with them she found the former housemaid Sarah, and saved her from poverty by employing her as the Bellamy's scullery maid.
[edit] Marriage
In Winter 1908, she became involved with a group of socialist poets, and upset her parents by inviting them all round for tea. She also, under the influence of one member, spent over £4 on shoes for street children, then refused to pay for them. Her father intervened, and paid for the shoes. After one argument with her parents, she ran away from home to stay with her friend Henrietta Winchmore, and was only discovered after Rose was forced to tell Hudson where Elizabeth was staying. Her father, who she was always very close to, went to see her, and shortly after Elizabeth and fellow poet Laurence Kirbridge had tea at Eaton Place.
While Elizabeth was reluctant to marry, the Head Housemaid and friend Rose, persuaded her it was the right thing. She and Laurence Kirbridge, the Cambridge-educated maternal grandson of a Dorset baronet, married in June 1909 [1].They honeymoned in Vienna, and set up home in Greenwich.
The marriage was unhappy from the start, and Laurence did not wish to consummate the relationship. He 'arranged' for his publisher, Sir Edwin Partridge, to impregnate Elizabeth at a soiree they couple were hosting. At Christmas 1909, Elizabeth informed her parents the marriage had failed. The family solicitor, Sir Geoffrey Dillon, was going to annul the marriage on the grounds it had not been consummated, but when Elizabeth's pregnancy was discovered and the indenity of the true father came out, Laurence was sent abroad with an allowance, and the Greenwich house was disbanded.
Elizabeth Kirbridge gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Elizabeth, in a London nursing home, and Laurence was the legal father and he attended the baby's christening. After this he was never heard from again. Elizabeth was never a natural mother, and was usually happy to let her be brought up in the nursery.
[edit] Suffragettes
Elizabeth Bellamy got herself involved in the Suffragette movement, and on one night went with others to attack an MP's house. Rose tried to stop her, but they were all arrested, including the innocent Rose. An Armenian Julius Karekin, who was coming out of the house they were attacking, found Elizabeth's card, and at Court got her off with a 40shilling fine, which he then paid. All the others, including Rose, were sent to prison. This made Elizabeth feel incredibly guilty, and with the help of Karekin got Rose freed after the discovery they were being force fed.
She soon started an affair with Karekin, and he gave her a hat shop, which she named Madame Yvonne. He also bought 165, Eaton Place when the £5600 lease was up for sale following the death of Lady Marjorie's father, and gave the house to Richard and Lady Marjorie. Her relationship with Julius Karekin fizzled out when after a few months he started a relationship with someone else. He always made it clear that he was a philanderer.
[edit] Move to America
She moved to New York, in about 1911, and married an attorney named Dana J. Wallace. In 1914, when talking to Georgina, Rose referred to Elizabeth and "her husband and children". Lady Marjorie was on her way to see Elizabeth when the Titanic sank and Lady Marjorie drowned. After this move to the United States, she was not seen in the series again. She would have become 'The Honourable' when her father was raised to the Peerage in 1917. While James was in America in 1929 he visited Elizabeth and by that time she was living in Phoenix, Arizona.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ According to Series One, she and Laurence married in 1909, however in Series Two everything was put back a year, and they were said to have married in 1908. This article follows the Series One date.
[edit] References
- John Hawkesworth, In My Lady's Chamber, Sphere Books Limited, 1973
