Victorian Celebrity Gossip

Celebrity gossip is nothing new as these two newspaper reports from 1890 and 1897 show. Both involve the ending of a marriage between an actor and an actress. Curiously the 2 actresses were sisters, Flora Clitherow is Mrs Storey and Lilian Clitherow is Mrs Gribben, daughters of the stage actor William Clitherow.


The Inquirer & Commercial News (Perth, WA), 1 January 1890, page 3.
(Source: Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program (ANDP))
The haphazard way, says the London correspondent of the S.A . Register,, in which a certain class of light-hearted, easy-going theatrical people conduct their matrimonial arrangements has always struck me as highly diverting. A case in point which may have some interest for your readers cropped up in the Divorce Court on Tuesday. All who saw the Gaiety Company in Australia will remember Fred Storey, the elastic-limbed eccentric dancer and comedian. Well, about 18 months ago Fred's wife bolted with an actor called   'Walter Granville,' and went to the States. On route from Australia with the Gaiety girls Fred came across his wife and her betrayer in Chicago. They were appropriately enough playing a moving domestic drama called'' The Bitter Wrong."  Perhaps you think Storey promptly slit   Granville's weasel and wallowed in his   gore. Not at all. They had several   gargles together," and were "as chummy as you please." Storey thanked 'Watty Granville for "taking such a hag as his wife off his hands." To which Granville pleasantly replied that "women were a matter of taste." For his part be found  Mrs. Storey very jolly. He was really fond of her indeed, and didn't intend to  leave her presently, as many a "Johnny might do." 



Otago Witness, 21 October 1897, page 39
(Source: New Zealand Papers Past)
“ In the London Divorce Court recently Justice Barnes had before him the case of Gribben v. Gribben and Pratt, a petition presented by the husband, Mr Andrew Gribben, actor, professionally known as Harry Gribben, praying for a dissolution of his marriage on the ground of the alleged misconduct of his wife, also an actress, with the co-respondent, Thomas Robert Pratt. A claim for damages was withdrawn, the co-respondent agreeing to pay £200 to cover damages and costs. Andrew Gribben, the petitioner, said he was married to the respondent at Melbourne in 1892. In 1895 they went to England, and took apartments at Sussex Street, Pimlico. Some time after their arrival in London a playing engagement was made for them to go to Calcutta, but prior to leaving England he received a very advantageous offer, which he accepted, and he was allowed to cancel his Indian engagement provided he allowed his wife to go, to which he assented provided her sister accompanied her. In April I896, on the respondent's return to England, he saw her, and she then told him that she did not intend to live with him any more, as she was then living with a gentleman who had made her independent of the stage, and that she was then residing in Gloucester Road with him. Verdict for the petitioner, with damages at £350. Justice Barnes said, as the jury had improved the petitioner's claim as regarded the damages, the matter had better be mentioned to him again when proof was given of the Australian marriage, for which purpose the case was adjourned.”