Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/491

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Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives.

MADAME MARY DAVIES.

Age 8.
From a Photo. by Hemans & Plumer.
Age 26.
From a Photo. by Alex. Bessano.
Age 19.
From a Photo. by Bertin, Brighton.
Present Day.
From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey.

M ADAME MARY DAVIES was born in London, her father, a Welsh sculptor, being precentor to the Welsh Chapel, Soho, where she received her first music lessons in the evening singing-class. At fourteen she became the pupil of Mr. Brinley Richards, and two years later made her first appearance in public at one of his concerts at the Hanover-square Rooms, where she sang "My mother bids me bind my hair" with the sweetness, feeling, and simplicity which have since rendered her, on the whole, the finest English ballad singer of her time. She married in 1888 Mr. Wm. Cadwaladr Davies, Secretary and Registrar of the University College for North Wales.