Sylvia Storey was a British stage performer associated with Edwardian musical comedy. She was linked to the Gaiety Theatre, London and hence was known as a “Gaiety Girl.”
The image at the top of the page comes from an edition of The Bystander dated June 30th 1909 by which time Sylvia had become the Countess Poulett. She married in 1908 and she and her husband travelled around the world. William Poulett, 7th Earl Poulett died in 1918 during the flu epidemic.
After she was widowed she became a socialite spending time in the United States. While spending time with Coco Chanel and the Duke of Westminster on his yatch, the Duke’s wife became jealous and threw Poulett’s belongings overboard.
In later life she took a cottage in Somerset.
Gaiety Girls were to be seen in chorus lines and were reputed to be more refined than other dancing girls in the music hall. As well as dancing they often posed for postcards and cigarette cards. Above you can see Sylvia in both black and white and colourised. Purists tend to frown on the practice of colourising old photographs today but it was common practice in the early twentieth century. The process of colourisation was carried out by “hand tinting” though this effect was was achieved in different ways.
The practice of hand tinting will be described in more detail in a later post. There will also be more information about Gaiety Girls. Sylvia Storey was far from the only Gaiety Girl to marry into the aristocracy.
Here’s another colourised card of Sylvia Storey. There are many more postcards of Sylvia out there and I will be adding them from time to time.
