Janette Ranken Thesiger Explained

Janette Mary Fernie Ranken
Birth Date:16 December 1877
Birth Place:Edinburgh, Scotland
Death Date:21 May 1970
Nationality:English
Occupation:Actress
Other Names:Juliet Hardinge
Spouse:Ernest Thesiger
Relatives:William Bruce Ellis Ranken (brother)

Janette Mary Fernie Ranken (married name Thesiger) (16 December 1877 – 21 May 1970) was an English actress who worked under the name of Juliet Hardinge. She was the wife of actor Ernest Thesiger and sister of the painter William Bruce Ellis Ranken.

Biography

Janette Mary Fernie Ranken was born in 1877, in a prosperous Edinburgh family, the daughter of Robert Burt Ranken (1840-1902) and Mary Witherington Dunlop. The painter William Bruce Ellis Ranken was her brother.

Ranken attended Oxford University where she met Margaret Jourdain. They moved to London and lived together. But Ernest Thesiger, who knew Ranken through her brother William, proposed a white marriage to Ranken, and she accepted. She left Jourdain and on 30 May 1917 Janette Ranken married Ernest Thesiger.[1] [2] Hilary Spurling, biographer of Ivy Compton-Burnett, who was friend of Ernest Thesiger through Jourdain, suggests that Thesiger and Janette wed largely out of their mutual adoration of William, who shaved his head when he learned of the engagement.[3] Ernest Thesiger does not mention Janette in his memoir, Practically True, even if they had a public life together,[4] and Richard Thesiger, Ernest's nephew, said to Spurling that Janette Thesiger told him the marriage had never been consummated.[5]

In the 1920s, Ranken was President of the West London Branch of the Theosophical Society. She was also Editor of the magazine Theosophy in the British Isles. She gave lectures like "The Web of Life" and "Some Problems of the Present". She was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.

At her brother's death in 1941, Janette Ranken gifted over 200 works to be distributed amongst English public galleries and museums.[6]

She died on 21 May 1970.

Career

Notes and References

  1. Web site: McBRINN. JOSEPH. 'Nothing is more terrifying to me than to see Ernest Thesiger sitting under the lamplight doing this embroidery': Ernest Thesiger (1879 - 1961), 'Expert Embroiderer'. 27 September 2017.
  2. Web site: Modernist Journals Project. www.library.brown.edu. Brown University & The University of Tulsa. 27 September 2017.
  3. Book: Curtis, James . James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters . Faber and Faber . 1998 . Boston . limited . 0-571-19285-8 . 240 .
  4. Book: Thesiger. Ernest Frederic Graham. Practically true. 1927. W. Heinemann. 6 January 2018.
  5. Book: Spurling. Hilary. Secrets of a Woman's Heart. 93 and 310.
  6. Web site: William Bruce Ellis Ranken, Artist - Mortimer Fine Arts - Bridgnorth Shropshire.
  7. Web site: Janette Mary Fernie Ranken stage name Juliet Hardinge. 6 January 2018.

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