Winifred Hart-Dyke
Winifred Hart-Dyke (2 December 1881 – March 1976) was an English dancer and actress associated with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Edwardian Musical Comedy. Her surname appears with and without the hyphen.
![](../I/m/lossless-page1-220px-Winifred_Hart_Dyke_1907.tif.png)
Early life
Winifred Amy Hart Dyke was born in Colchester, the daughter of Frederick Hotham Hart Dyke and Emily Thorndike. Her father was a professor of military studies at Cambridge University. Her great-grandfather was Sir Percival Hart Dyke (1767–1846). Sir William Hart Dyke, 7th Baronet, was a cousin.[1] She studied ballet with Malvina Cavalazzi Mapleson.[2]
Career
![](../I/m/lossless-page1-170px-WinifredHartDyke1902RoyalMag.tif.png)
Hart-Dyke appeared in several comic opera productions with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company between 1900 and 1903, including The Rose of Persia, The Emerald Isle, Iolanthe, Merrie England and A Princess of Kensington.[3] A reviewer of Merrie England, in Punch magazine, called her "one of the most graceful, most spirited, and inspiriting of danseuses I have seen for a long time."[4]
She was then in the original London cast of the Edwardian musical comedies The Earl and the Girl (1903),[5] Little Hans Andersen (1903) and The Catch of the Season (1905).[3] In 1907 she was a solo dancer in Amasis, an Egyptian-themed light opera.[6][7] In 1908, she appeared in The Girl From Across the Border.[3]
Personal life
Hart-Dyke married Cyril Arthur Mileham, a solicitor, in 1911. They had two daughters, born in 1913 and 1918. She was widowed when Mileham died in 1958. Hart-Dyke died in 1976, at the age of 94.[1]
References
- "Lt.-Col. Frederick Hotham Hart Dyke", ThePeerage.com, accessed 1 July 2017
- St. Johnston, Sir Reginald. A History of Dancing, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company (1906), p. 125
- Stone, David. "Winifred Hart Dyke (1900–03)", Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 2001, accessed 1 July 2017
- "The 'German Hood' Entertainment", Punch, 23 April 1902, p. 302
- "The Earl and the Girl", The Guide to Musical Theatre.
- "Dancer Extraordinary to Amāsis", The Sketch, 23 January 1907, p. 4 (supplement)
- "A Dancer before Pharaoh", The Bystander, 30 January 1907, p. 243
External links
- A photograph postcard of Hart-Dyke in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
- A folder of Hart-Dyke's letters is held in the D'Oyly Carte archive at the Victoria & Albert Museum.