Felicity Tree

Early life

Born in Chelsea, London, in 1894, Tree was the middle daughter of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his wife, the actress Helen Maud Holt. She was the sister of Viola Tree and Iris Tree, and the niece of the author Constance Beerbohm, the caricaturist and parodist Max Beerbohm, and the engineer and explorer Julius Beerbohm. Her grandson is Richard Cory-Wright, 4th Baronet Cory-Wright.

Tree was involved in the theatre and society at an early age. In 1908, she was praised in The Bystander for her leading role in a play by Mrs. Walter Cave, The Three Wishes, opposite the daughter of the British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith. She was later pictured in The Sketch wearing her costume; the paper reported that the performances benefited the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. At the Shakespeare Ball in London in 1911, The New York Times noted that she appeared with her family and dressed as Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. In 1912, The Evening News reported that Tree sold programmes at the Keats-Shelley Memorial matinees at the Haymarket Theatre.

She was presented at the court by Margot Asquith in 1913, and she wore a white satin gown with a rose pink train made of tulle and lace. From as far away as California, the press commented on her attendance, with her sister Iris, at a fancy dress costume ball in 1913. The same year, she went in ancient Greek-style dress to the Picture Ball at Royal Albert Hall. In 1914 she sang a role in the cantata La Damoiselle élue at the French embassy in London. The same year, she attended the Picture Ball at Albert Hall and was profiled in the Kingston Gleaner, which wrote that "she has inherited a great sense of humour from her famous father." Later in 1914 she trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew's Hospital, having been a life saver from 1908, when she passed the tests provided by the Royal Life Saving Society in 1908.