Rosie Boote (1878 – 17 August 1958) was an Irish Gaiety Girl who became the Marchioness of Headfort when she married in 1901.
Early life
Rose Boote may have been born in Ireland, or to Irish parents in England; reports vary on this point. She was also said to have attended a convent school at Clonmel.
Peeresses of the Stage, by Cranstoun Metcalfe (1913) states that "Rose Boote was born in Tipperary, the daughter of the late Charles Boote, a man of independent means". Boote's entry in The Catholic Who's Who for 1952 also gives her father's name as Charles Boote and says she was educated at the Ursuline Convent in Thurles, County Tipperary.
In the 1881 census, a three-year-old Rose Boote was living in Luton, the only child of Charles Boote, a comedian from Nottingham, and his wife Annie, a straw hat maker. Mother and daughter were reported to have been born in Luton. Charles Chamberlain Boote had married Annie Hassall in Luton in 1879. In his My Life and Times, Compton Mackenzie reports that "In 1880 Marie Hassall had married Charles Boote, who had deserted a puritan home in Nottingham to go on the stage." A study of the Compton Comedy Company records that "Marie Hassall, an Irish Catholic actress", was left with a three-year-old daughter when her husband Charles Boote was killed by a star trap while playing Harlequin. The death of Charles Chamberlain Boote is recorded at Nottingham in 1885.
