Elsie Fogerty

Anne Elizabeth "Elsie" Fogerty (16 December 1865 – 4 July 1945) was a British teacher who departed from the customary practice of "voice and diction" also called elocution. At that time "Voice and Diction" focused entirely on the mouth and nasal cavity to produce speech sounds. Fogerty's technique ended up focusing on the entire body and voice to produce speech. At first, she used just the lungs to resonate the sound, but soon included the whole body, because she discovered that posture and movement also affected speech. It ultimately became known as the "Body and Voice" technique. She was founder and principal of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London from 1906 to 1942. Early years The daughter of engineer and architect Joseph Fogerty FRIBA (d. 1899) and his wife, Hannah Cochrane (d. 1910), both of Limerick, Fogerty was born in Sydenham, south London on 16 December 1865. An only child, she was privately educated and in 1883 trained at the Paris Conservatoire under Coquelin aine and Louis-Arsène Delaunay, and with Hermann Vezin in London. Fogerty went on to teach English and Elocution at the Crystal Palace School of Art and Literature from 1889, Roedean School from 1908 to 1937, and was tutor of diction at Sir Frank Benson's London School of Acting. Central School of Speech and Drama Fogerty began teaching Saturday speech classes at the Royal Albert Hall in the 1890s. Following their success, in 1906 she founded the Central School of Speech and Drama then known as the Central School of Speech-Training and Dramatic Arts at the Hall. By 1908 she had worked out a three year training course from speech trainer and drama teachers. In 1923 the school was one of three educational establishments approved by the University of London to grant diplomas in dramatic art. Fogerty gave university extension lectures at the Albert Hall, and for many years took evening classes for London County Council teachers.