Emma Litchfield

Emma Litchfield was an actress and author of around fifteen dramas. She came from an old theatrical family and was married to Conrad Edward Auguste André Besche (sometimes Berche), whose stage name was Conrad E. Stratford. He was a member of her theatrical company and died in 1951 (obituary in The Stage, 16 August 1951). Litchfield's obituary in The Stage (11 February 1937) noted that 'Besides being a versatile character actress she was author of some fifteen dramas, some of which she toured with her husband. For five years she was Alfred Denville’s producer and character actress, with her husband as Mr. Denville’s leading man at the Royal, Hanley, and elsewhere’. Litchfield's family history was published in an article in the Staffordshire Sentinel, 8 June 1926. This article noted that 'her paternal great-grandmother, Mrs. Litchfield, was an actress at Drury-lane and Covent Garden Theatres, London, where she was second to the famous Mrs. Siddons at end of the eighteenth century. Emma Litchfield had an old playbook which showed that her great-grandmother had played Emilia to Mrs. Siddons' Desdemona in 'Othello'. In addition to other members of the family being in theatre, Emma Litchfield’s father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Carr Litchfield, were in management and well known in Lancashire. They had stock seasons in towns including Wigan, Bury, Burnley, and Rochdale. Emma Litchfield's brother and sister were both performers.

Performances associated with Emma Litchfield