Kitty Melrose

Kitty Melrose, born Agnes Butterfield on 6 September 1881 in Cumberland, was an English stage actress and singer. Her father, Stephen Butterfield, later established himself as a clothier in Blackpool, Lancashire, where Melrose grew up alongside her mother, Jane.

Melrose built a career on both the British and American stage. In 1909 she appeared on Broadway in the musical The Dollar Princess at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York. During that same New York engagement, she suffered a serious injury when she was struck by a ball while golfing with F. Pope Stamper. Physicians initially feared permanent disfigurement, though skilled surgical treatment left her with only a minor scar. She recovered fully and continued performing. Her final stage appearance came at the London Adelphi Theatre in The Quaker Girl, a musical that opened on 5 November 1910 and ran for 536 performances.

In the years following The Quaker Girl, Melrose's personal circumstances deteriorated significantly. Her fiancé, Edward Lawson-Johnson, ended their engagement by post after his family, who provided his financial support, learned the couple had been living together outside of marriage and forbade the union. A letter from Lawson-Johnson recovered after her death stated that marriage was impossible on both family and financial grounds and acknowledged he had been wrong to allow her to believe otherwise. Melrose composed a reply that was never sent, in which she expressed that she could no longer endure the situation and asked for his forgiveness. Dr. Eugene Michael Niall of Piccadilly testified at a subsequent inquest that he had treated Melrose approximately three months before her death for a nervous breakdown following her use of barbital. Her father disclosed that she had previously attempted to take her own life some years earlier.

On 3 June 1912, Melrose died at her apartment in Smith Square, Westminster. She was found in her locked apartment with her head in the oven, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation from carbon monoxide poisoning. A public inquest returned a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity. Her family attributed her death to the breakdown of her engagement to Lawson-Johnson. Melrose was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. She was thirty years old at the time of her death.