Belle Bilton in a Nutshell
Belle Bilton went from singing in front of soldiers at Woolwich to wearing an Irish coronet, and London never quite got over it. She was a music-hall girl who married the heir to an earldom at 22, saw her furious father-in-law ship her husband off to Australia, beat a divorce case that the whole English-speaking world read about, and ended up as Countess of Clancarty at Garbally in County Galway. She was dead at 40. Here's her story, followed by my own collection of her pictures and press cuttings.
Belle Bilton was a music-hall name Victorian England could not stop looking at. Isabel Maud Penrice Bilton — born in London in 1866 (late October 1866) — sang with her sister Flo as the Sisters Bilton, then married William Trench, Viscount Dunlo, at Hampstead on 10 July 1889. His father, the 4th Earl of Clancarty, packed the boy off to Australia and tried to force a divorce. The 1890 court case collapsed. When the old earl died in 1891 she became Countess of Clancarty. She died of cancer at Garbally, Ballinasloe, on 31 December 1906.
The Australia hook is the father’s exile plot, not a Sydney career. These are cabinet cards and sheet-music faces.
Her Early Life
She was born Isabel Maud Penrice Bilton in Newington, south London, in October 1866. Wikipedia gives the day as the 26th in one spot and the 29th in another, and some older sources put her birth in 1867 (more on that further down). Her father, John George Bilton, served in the Royal Engineers. Burke's Peerage, as quoted on Wikipedia, calls him a sergeant. Her mother was Kate Maude, née Penrice. Belle was the middle daughter, between Violet (born 1865) and Florence, known as Flo.
The family lived at Charlton, near Woolwich, and the girls got their first taste of performing at the Woolwich Barracks nearby. Belle was on the stage by about 14, and by 1883 she was earning, as one paper put it, "five and thirty shillings".
The Sisters Bilton
By 1886 she and Flo were billed as the Sisters Bilton, a singing and dancing act working the London halls. A local paper later listed the London Pavilion, the Oxford, the Holborn and the Paragon among the places they played. The big photographers of the day, Bassano and W. & D. Downey among them, took their pictures, and the sisters made the most of it. Their faces turned up on cabinet cards and even on American cigarette cards.
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Lord Dunlo and the Corinthian Club
Belle's private life was already complicated before any lord turned up. Wikipedia says that in July 1888 she had a son at Maidenhead to an American-born man, Alden Carter Weston, who was still married and spent time in prison. She came to lean on the support of an art dealer, Isidor Emanuel Wertheimer, and moved into St John's Wood with her sister Violet and Violet's husband, William Roberts, while the baby was fostered out.
In May 1889, at the Corinthian Club, she met William Frederick Le Poer Trench, Viscount Dunlo. He'd been born on 29 December 1868, was an Old Etonian and was heir to his father, the 4th Earl of Clancarty, an Irish peer who was also a Dutch marquess. A wire story quoted by the Vancouver Sun described the club as a place "frequented by the demimondaines of the 'upper' class and the fast young swells of London". The papers weren't kind to him either, calling him "a weak-eyed, weak-faced, beardless boy". Weak or not, he was smitten. They married at Hampstead on 10 July 1889, when she was 22 and he was 20.
Packed Off to Australia
This is the Australian part of the story. The old earl, Richard Somerset Le Poer Trench, was horrified that his son had married a music-hall singer. Dunlo was still under 21 and depended on his father's allowance, so the earl used the money to make him travel to Australia, out of his wife's reach. Historian Brian Casey says the earl also set about moving as much of the family estate as he could beyond Dunlo's reach. Belle was left with no money and went back on the stage. Her popularity didn't suffer for it. If anything, the public took her side.
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The Dunlo Divorce Case, 1890
While Dunlo was in Australia he signed an affidavit accusing his wife of adultery with Wertheimer. He later said he'd signed it without understanding what it meant. On the strength of it, a divorce petition went in in March 1890, and the case came on that July before Sir James Hannen. It turned into a cause célèbre. The Indianapolis Journal called it "unique" for its "study of Bohemian life", and the judge felt he had to warn the jury that Bohemians lived lives "quite foreign to the ordinary juryman's notions".
The case fell over. The jury found that no misconduct between Lady Dunlo and Wertheimer had been proved, and her husband said he believed her innocent. Dunlo admitted he'd only gone along with the divorce because his father threatened his income. The earl carried out the threat and cut him off, so the young couple lived on what Belle earned. The San Francisco Examiner reckoned she "easily averaged about 100 pounds per week", and added that her husband was "no more capable of earning his living for himself than a cow is capable of composing a comic opera."
There was a sting in the tail. In January 1891, Vancouver's News Advertiser reported that a court had found Wertheimer to be the father of one of Lady Dunlo's children and ordered him to pay weekly towards its keep, and the people watching in court applauded.
Back on the Stage
All the publicity didn't hurt her career. In December 1889, as "Lady Dunlo", she played Maid Marion in The Babes in the Wood at the Prince's Theatre in Manchester, with Flo as Robin Hood and Little Tich as the Baron's Page. After the trial the impresario Augustus Harris gave her a well-paid part in the burlesque Venus, and she played the title role at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. Over Christmas 1890 she was Beauty in Harris's Drury Lane pantomime Beauty and the Beast, with Dan Leno, Vesta Tilley and Herbert Campbell in the cast. She also appeared in Blue Beard at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow. Off the stage she painted in oils, and her work was shown at the Continental Gallery in Bond Street.
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Countess of Clancarty
The old earl died on 29 May 1891. Dunlo became the 5th Earl of Clancarty, and Belle Bilton, the barracks singer, became a countess. New York's Illustrated American put her on its cover that June, and that cover is in my collection below. The earl's coffin went into the Clancarty vault at Highgate Cemetery, and his son was laid there in 1929.
Her Children
Burke's Peerage, as listed on Wikipedia, gives the couple five children:
- Richard Frederick John Donough, later 6th Earl (27 December 1891 – 1971)
- Power Francis William, Richard's twin (27 December 1891 – 9 June 1894)
- Lady Beryl Franziska Kathleen Bianca (1893–1957)
- Roderic Charles Berkeley (1895–1937)
- Greville Sydney Rocheforte, later 7th Earl (10 December 1902 – 1975)
That list doesn't include the son born in 1888, before the marriage.
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Garbally, Ballinasloe
The Clancarty seat was Garbally Court at Ballinasloe in County Galway, a house built in 1819. Money was always a problem. Casey's history of the estate says the earl sold the family property at Ballinasloe in 1904, and he was declared bankrupt in 1910. Even so, it was at Garbally Park that Belle died. Long after, in 1922, the Diocese of Clonfert bought Garbally Court and the estate from the Clancarty trustees for £6,750, and it became St Joseph's College, better known as Garbally College.
Her Death
She fell ill around 1904 and died of cancer at Garbally on 31 December 1906, aged 40. The New York Times ran the news on New Year's Day 1907 under the headline "Belle Bilton Dead". In 1908 the earl married again, to Mary Gwatkin Ellis, and he died on 16 February 1929.
The Bilton Name
Belle carries the Bilton name, but none of the sources I found links her family to mine, so she's here as a remarkable Bilton, not as part of my family tree. Her Australian link is her husband's forced trip out here in 1889–90. She had no Sydney career herself. Her story still gets told, too. Irish writer Nuala O'Connor wrote a novel about her, Becoming Belle, published in 2018.
From My Collection
THE GREATER SUNDAY PRESS WOMAN'S MAGAZINE SECTION
The Romance of the "Bewitching" Belle Bilton
From the Concert Hall to a Castle and a Coronet; the Gayest and Most Thoughtless of Pretty Foot-Light Favorites Captivating and Marrying the Weak and Devoted Young Heir to An Earldom
—And Holding Him in Spite of the Most Drastic Opposition of His Family; Bearing Him Six Children; Adorning the Title of Countess of Clancarty—This Remarkable Woman Has No Parallel in History.
[The photo captions, the article text and the side column are too small to read in this copy of the page.]
## THE ILLUSTRATED AMERICAN.
Vol. VII. New York. For the Week ending JUNE 20, 1891. Chicago. No. 70.
BELLE BILTON, NOW COUNTESS OF CLANCARTY. (See page [illegible].)
Timeline
- October 1866 – Isabel Maud Penrice Bilton is born in Newington, London. Some sources say 1867.
- 29 December 1868 – William Frederick Le Poer Trench, the future Lord Dunlo, is born.
- c. 1880 – Belle goes on the stage at about 14.
- 1886 – The Sisters Bilton are appearing in press billings.
- July 1888 – Her son is born at Maidenhead.
- May 1889 – She meets Lord Dunlo at the Corinthian Club.
- 10 July 1889 – They marry at Hampstead. His father sends him to Australia.
- 21 December 1889 – The Babes in the Wood opens at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, with Lady Dunlo as Maid Marion.
- March 1890 – The divorce petition is filed on Dunlo's affidavit.
- July 1890 – The Dunlo divorce case is heard before Sir James Hannen. No misconduct is proved.
- 1890–91 – She plays Beauty in Beauty and the Beast at Drury Lane.
- January 1891 – A court orders Wertheimer to support one of her children.
- 29 May 1891 – The 4th Earl dies. Belle becomes Countess of Clancarty.
- 20 June 1891 – She is on the cover of The Illustrated American.
- 27 December 1891 – Her twin sons Richard and Power are born.
- 1904 – She falls ill. The Ballinasloe property is sold.
- 31 December 1906 – She dies of cancer at Garbally, Ballinasloe.
- 1922 – Garbally Court and the estate are sold to the Diocese of Clonfert.
- 16 February 1929 – The 5th Earl dies.
Where the Sources Disagree
- Her birth. The English Wikipedia article gives 26 October 1866 in its opening and 29 October 1866 in its information box. Footlight Notes and a Boston Public Library catalogue note give 1867.
- Her name. She appears as both Isabel Maud and Isabel Maude. Wikipedia and Burke's Peerage use "Maude". One Commons file even spells the surname "Biltom".
- Flo's birth. Wikipedia says Florence was born in 1868. Footlight Notes gives 1872.
- How many children. Burke's Peerage, as quoted on Wikipedia, lists five children of the marriage, and the Belle Bilton article says five too. An American Sunday paper in my collection says she bore him six. The Wikipedia infobox for the 5th Earl lists six sons and two daughters, but that covers both of his marriages.
- When she became countess. Wikipedia and Footlight Notes say 1891. The Boston Public Library catalogue note gives 1901, which looks like a slip.
- Garbally. Casey says the Ballinasloe property was sold in 1904, yet she died at Garbally in 1906, and the college history has the trustees selling Garbally Court in 1922. The 1904 sale may not have covered the house itself.
My Earlier Posts
Another remarkable woman whose life made headlines: Bea Miles – Sydney's Shakespeare-Reciting, Taxi-Fighting Bohemian.
Sources
- Belle Bilton, Wikipedia (its references include The People, 6 January 1907; the Kentish Independent, 4 January 1907; the New York Times, 1 January 1907; the Hull Daily Mail, 1 January 1907; and J. Holledge, "From Chorus Girl to Countess", The World's News, 30 April 1955)
- William Trench, 5th Earl of Clancarty, Wikipedia (citing Burke's Peerage, 107th edition, 2003; B. Casey, "The decline and fall of the Clancarty estate, 1891–1923", Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 67, 2015; and H. Wyndham, Romances of the Peerage, 1930)
- Richard Trench, 4th Earl of Clancarty, Wikipedia
- St Joseph's College, Garbally Park, Wikipedia
- J. Mackie, "This Week in History, 1891: Bohemians, bluebloods and one of the great scandals of 1891", Vancouver Sun, 28 January 2022
- Lady Dunlo (Belle Bilton), Footlight Notes, 23 March 2013 (quoting the Manchester Weekly Times, 14 December 1889)
- Isabel Maude Penrice (Belle) Le Poer Trench (née Bilton), Countess of Clancarty, National Portrait Gallery, London
- Wikimedia Commons file descriptions for each picture, linked from the images