Daisy Burrell

Daisy Burrell (born Daisy Isobel Eaglesfield Ratton; 16 June 1892 – 10 June 1982) was a British stage actress and Edwardian musical comedy performer who also appeared as a leading lady in silent films and in pantomime.

In 1951 she appeared in The Golden Year, the first musical comedy produced for television.

Daisy Ratton was born in Wandsworth in 1892, although according to Who Was Who in the Theatre 1912–1976 she was born in Singapore in 1893.

She had a complicated family history, marred by early deaths. Her grandfather, Charles George Ratton, was a stockbroker from an Anglo-Portuguese Roman Catholic family. In 1867 he married Isabella Iphigenia de Pavia, and they lived at Stoke Newington, but he died in 1873, aged 35, leaving a young son and daughter. His widow, Daisy's grandmother, married Hassan Fareed the next year and died in 1890, aged 42. In 1891, Daisy's father, Charles Morris Ratton, married Ethel Eaglesfield Griffith, the daughter of another stockbroker, but by the end of 1892 he disappears from the records. Her grandfather, E. J. Griffith, died in 1895 as a hospital clerk at Guy’s Hospital, leaving a modest £365. His widow, Matilda Catherine Lovibond Griffith, the youngest child of Dr Edward Long MRCS, died in October 1898 at Lavender Hill.

Daisy Burrell’s mother, Ethel Ratton, was by 1898 the partner of Henry S. Burrell, licensee of the Clarence Hotel, Stoke Newington. Their son, John Griffith Burrell, was born in March 1899, and christened in August 1907; their daughter Edwina Ethel was born in September 1908. In 1900, H. S. Burrell had the Old Star in Wapping. He also had a career as a singer, using the stage name of Harry Saunders, and at the time of the 1901 census the Burrell family was in Willesden, using the name Saunders, apart from Daisy, whose name was given as Ratton. In 1911, the family was in Stoke Newington, and was again called Burrell. Later it lived mostly in Kent, at Hythe and Folkestone. H. S. Burrell was licensee of the Swan Hotel, Hythe, during the First World War. In 1939, Henry and Ethel Burrell were living at 77, Castle Road, Hythe, with their daughter Edwina. Ethel Burrell died in 1944, and Henry Burrell in 1955, leaving an estate valued at £5,166.

Charles M. Ratton had a sister, Laura Theresa Ratton, Daisy Burrell’s aunt, who lived in Worthing and died unmarried in 1944.

Taking her step-father's surname, at least as a performer, Burrell first appeared on stage at the London Hippodrome in July 1903, playing the part of Kitty in The Redskins, a water spectacular by Alicia Ramsey. She went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music, and in 1909 played the part of Youth in Give Heed, a modern morality play by Blanche G. Vulliamy, performed by students of the Guildhall School at the Court Theatre.

On leaving, Burrell went into pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and in 1910 The Illustrated London News noted her appearing as Cinderella at the new Palladium. She first came to wide attention the same year, appearing at the Vaudeville Theatre in The Girl in the Train. After closing in London this production, starring Burrell in the title role, went on tour until 1911, with the Gloucestershire Echo reporting that "Miss Daisy Burrell acts and sings delightfully Gonda Van der Loo".