Elizabeth Baker (20 August 1876 – 8 March 1962) was an English

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

whose plays explored class, gender and the domestic and professional lives of the lower middle classes. Baker was born in London on 20 August 1876. Her parents were drapers and she began her working life as a drapery assistant, and later a typist, newspaper editor and journalist for

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

. In June 1915 at the age of 39 she married James Allaway, a widower. Baker worked for the suffrage movement and was involved with the Women Writers Suffrage League and the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

. The themes of Baker's plays arose from her social consciousness and were analyses of class, gender and social mobility. The plot of her first play ''Beastly Pride'' (1907), performed by the Croydon Repertory Theatre, considered a lower middle-class girl who wished to marry a working class builder and her parents' objection to the marriage. The constrained lives of the lower middle-class clerical classes and the issue of marriage was the subject of Baker's first full-length play ''

Chains A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A c ...

'' (1909). ''Edith'' (1912) was first performed as a fund-raiser for the Women Writers Suffrage League at the Princes Theatre in London, and deals with the issues of a woman inheriting wealth from a family business. Working women and economic insecurity are the themes of other plays including ''Partnership, Miss Tassey, The Price of Thomas Scott, Miss Robinson'' and ''Penelope Forgives.'' After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Baker and Allaway lived in

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in the

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

for nearly two years. After the death of Allaway in 1941, Baker moved to

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex, north-east of central London, and by rail from Liverpool Street station. Stortford had an estimated po ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

where she lived with her stepsister. She died in Bishop's Stortford on 8 March 1962. Not long before her death

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

televised two of her plays: ''Chains'' was produced as ''Ticket for Tomorrow'' in November 1959, and ''Miss Robinson'' as ''Private and Confidential'' in May 1960. Baker was reintroduced to a British audience when ''Chains'' was staged for the first time in nearly a century by the

Orange Tree Theatre The Orange Tree Theatre is a 180-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south-west London, which was built specifically as a theatre in the round. It is housed within a disused 1867 primary school, built in Victorian Gothic style. Th ...

in November 2007. In 2019

Mint Theater Company Mint Theater Company was founded in 1992 in New York City. Their mission is to find, produce, and advocate for "worthwhile plays from the past that have been lost or forgotten". They have been instrumental in restoring the theatrical legacy of sev ...

in New York City launched the "Meet Miss Baker" series which aims to present several of Baker's works through full productions and readings; to "bring new attention to this long forgotten, much deserving author." In 2019 they produced ''The Price of Thomas Scott.'' They also presented readings of ''Edith'' and ''Miss Tassey''. In 2020 they planned to present ''Chains'' and ''Partnership'' but these plans were interrupted by the COVID-19 Pandemic. They went on to present ''Chains'' in the summer of 2022 at Theatre Row with the same cast as had been scheduled two years earlier. They also staged a reading of ''Penelope Forgives''.

Plays

* ''Beastly Pride'' (1907) - originally titled ''A Question of Caste'' * ''

'' (1909) * ''Cupid in Clapham'' (1910) * ''Miss Tassey'' (1910) * ''Edith'' (1912) * ''The Price of Thomas Scott'' (1913) * ''Beastly Pride'' (1914) * ''Over a Garden Wall'' (1915) * ''Partnership'' (1917) * ''Miss Robinson'' (1918) * ''Bert's Girl'' (1927) * ''Umbrellas'' (1927) * ''Penelope Forgives'' (1930) * ''One of the Spicers'' (1932)

References

External links

*
Elizabeth Baker at Great War Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker English dramatists and playwrights 1876 births 1962 deaths