Mabel Hackney

Mabel Lucy Hackney (1872–1914) was a British actress born in Swansea, Wales, the daughter of William Hackney (1842–1891) and Susan Lucy Hackney (née Penrose; 1848–after 1914). She appeared on Broadway between 1901 and 1910 and is also remembered as the wife of dramatist and actor Laurence Irving and daughter-in-law of the celebrated actor Henry Irving.

Hackney began her professional career as understudy to Evelyn Millard at the St James's Theatre in London. During her time there she took on several roles, including Lady Clarice Raindean in The Masqueraders opposite George Alexander in 1894, Amelia, Countess of Rassendyll in The Prisoner of Zenda in 1896, and Blanche Oriel in Pinero's The Princess and the Butterfly in 1897. She subsequently appeared as Ottoline Mallinson in Lord and Lady Algy and as Nelly Mostyn in Constancy at the Comedy Theatre, both in 1898.

She joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre in London, where her credits included The Lyons Mail, the role of Virgilia in Coriolanus (1901), Nora Brewster in Arthur Conan Doyle's A Story of Waterloo (1901), Annette in The Bells (1901), and Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice (1901). It was within this company that she met Laurence Irving, whom she would later marry. As part of the London Lyceum Company's 1901–02 North American tour, Hackney played Sarah Oldfield in the curtain-raiser Nance Oldfield on a bill that featured Ellen Terry and Laurence Irving as Mathias in The Bells; the company also performed The Merchant of Venice during the tour. In 1903 she played Pia dei Tolomei opposite Henry Irving in the title role of Dante at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Hackney married Laurence Irving in 1903. The couple had two children: Laurence Irving Brodribb (1903–1988) and Dorothy Elizabeth Irving Brodribb (1906–2003). That same year she appeared as Lucy Sacheverell in a tour of her husband's play Richard Lovelace, in a cast that also included Irving and Gerald Lawrence. In 1905 she played Alice Maitland opposite Harley Granville Barker in The Voysey Inheritance at the Royal Court Theatre, and appeared there again in Pan and the Young Shepherd in 1906. She created the role of Phyllis in Pinero's The Thunderbolt at the St James's Theatre in 1908 and toured with her husband that same year in Peg Woffington.

During 1909–10, Hackney and her husband were in New York, where her Broadway appearances included The Incubus and The Three Daughters of M. Dupont. Her Broadway career, which had begun in 1901, also encompassed The Affinity and The Merchant of Venice. In 1910 she appeared as Young Lady opposite her husband in his play The Dog Between at His Majesty's Theatre, and as Sonia Martinova in his play The Unwritten Law, which opened at the Garrick Theatre before transferring to the Kingsway Theatre in 1911. That year she also appeared as one of the Twelve Hours in an all-female production of Ben Jonson's The Vision of Delight at His Majesty's Theatre, a cast that included Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lily Brayton, Evelyn Millard, Lillie Langtry, Clara Butt, Lena Ashwell, and Lilian Braithwaite. Also in 1911, she played the title role in Margaret Catchpole at the Duke of York's Theatre opposite her husband, and later that year the Irvings toured The Unwritten Law together with The Lily, in which Hackney played Christiane. In 1912 she appeared as Gringoire in her husband's adaptation The King and the Vagabond at the Kingsway Theatre.

From 1912 to 1914 the couple toured first Australia and then North America. Among their most successful productions on the tour was Laurence Irving's play The Typhoon, set during the Russo-Japanese War, in which he played a Japanese officer.

Hackney died on 29 May 1914 in the RMS Empress of Ireland disaster. In the early hours of that morning, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, the Empress of Ireland was rammed on her starboard bow by the Storstad, a Norwegian collier. The collision opened a large hole in the ship's side, flooding the lower decks rapidly and causing the vessel to list severely to starboard. Within approximately fourteen minutes of the collision, at 02:10, the ship sank, resulting in the deaths of 1,012 people. Laurence Irving and Hackney both drowned, and their bodies were never recovered. Eyewitness accounts reported that Irving, having secured two lifebelts and placed one on his wife, remained with her on the sloping deck as the ship went down, and that the two were last seen clasped in each other's arms. In her will, Hackney left £5,761 3s 11d to her widowed mother, Susan, who was presumably caring for the couple's orphaned children.