Evelyn Victoria Ann Tate (née Chandler) (1887 – 1979)[1] [2] known by her stage name Eva Carrington, was an actress, model and sometime peeress as the wife of the Baron de Clifford.[3]
Carrington was born Evelyn Chandler in London, the daughter of Anglo-Irish Walter Robert Chandler, a messenger and hall porter at the Walsingham House Hotel, Piccadilly, sometime orderly room clerk to Colonel Fred Burnaby. Her mother, Louisa, was a theatre attendant. By 1891, the family were using "Carrington" as their surname.[1] [4] [5] Her sister, Gladys Winifred Carrington Chandler, married Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Christopher Humphrey Tancred (1888-1972), grandson of Sir Thomas Tancred, 7th Baronet, a philanthropist and early colonist of Canterbury, New Zealand; their son was the actor Anthony Tancred (1930-1995).[6]
Carrington was a model for the artist James Whistler between 1898 and 1902. She posed for a number of Whistler's paintings and drawings, including "A dancing woman in a pink robe, seen from the back",[7] "The Tambourine"[8] "Eva and Gladys Carrington seated on a sofa",[9] and "The Bead Stringers".[10] [11] [12]
She became a renowned actress during the Edwardian period. A famous role was as one of the Gibson Girls in the British theatre performance of "The Catch of the Season"[13]
Eva married Jack Southwell Russell, 25th Baron de Clifford, in February 1906. She adopted the title Lady de Clifford. This marriage, of a commoner and showgirl to a senior peer, created a scandal at the time.[13]
Following her first husband's death, she married Captain Arthur Roy Stock of Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire, in 1913; he died in 1915.[14] In 1922, Eva married George Vernon Tate, grandson of the founder of the Tate Gallery.[15]
She had several children, and the only son, the eldest child, Edward Southwell Russell, succeeded to the de Clifford barony.[3] A colour photographic portrait of her and her four daughters by Yevonde taken in 1932 is in the National Portrait Gallery in London.