Janet Achurch

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Janet Achurch (1864-1916) was an English stage actress. She made her London debut in 1883. She played many Shakespearean roles, but is best known as a pioneer of major roles in the works of Ibsen. She played Nora in A Doll's House and produced and starred in Little Eyolf (1896). She also appeared in new plays by George Bernard Shaw. She retired in 1913.

Janet Sharp on January 17, 1863 at 47 Richmond Grove, Chorlton upon Melock, Lancashire England. Her mother died during the birth and she was subsequently raised by her insurance agent father William Prior Sharp. She claimed to be the descendant of a long line of actors, and it is their name from which she drew her stage name. James and Mary Achurch, her great-grandparents, had been managers of the Theatre Royal in Manchester, England. She did follow in her family’s tradition when, after she was educated privately up until 1881, she attended Sarah Thorne’s actor training school in Maragate.

Her first appearance on stage was in 1883 at the Olympic theater in London in the farce Betsy Baker. From 1883 to her retirement in 1913, she appeared in a wide range of roles, in London, touring England, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, India, and Egypt. In 1893, she took over management of the Novelty Theater in London. That year she played one of her most notable roles as Nora in the English premiere of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. This increased her notoriety as well as Ibsen’s standing in England. The playwright George Bernard Shaw was a big supporter and advocate of her work on stage, writing the title role of his play Candida with her in mind and would only allow it to be performed if she was to play the part. It took three years for this to happen and she performed it in Her Majesty’s Theater in 1897.

In 1889, during her tour with her actor husband Charles Charrington (whom she married in 1886) in Egypt, she gave birth to a stillborn child in Cairo. Achurch almost died during the birth and the subsequent pain forced her to use increasingly large doses of morphine to get through her performances. This new addiction was added to her propensity towards alcoholism and depression.

Her last performance was in 1913 as Merete Bery in Wiers-Jenssen’s The Witch. After battle exhaustion and illness, she immediately declared her retirement from the stage after the production closed. She died of morphine poisoning on September 11, 1916 at the age of 52 at 4 Devonshire Terrace, Ventnor, Isle of Wight.

References

Salmon, Eric. “Achurch, Janet (1863–1916).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. May 2007. 30 Sept. 2007 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38323>.