The Green Room Book

Let’s go back to 1906. The Green Room Book or Who's Who On The Stage: An Annual Biographical Record of the Dramatic Musical and Variety World for 1907 was published in London by T Sealey Clark & Co. The editor was the Bampton Hunt. (Why don’t people have names like that these days?)

There is a section called The Stage and the Peerage, which contains the following entry:

MEUX, Lady (née Valerie Langdon; stage name, Valerie Reece); d. of Charles Langdon; m. Henry Bruce Meux (heir to Sir Henry Meux, 2nd baronet, and principal proprietor of Meux’s Brewery), November, 1878; appeared in burlesque and various other of the lighter productions at several of the West End theatres; retired from the stage on her marriage, which, in view of the fact that the bridegroom was the heir to a fortune estimated at something like three millions sterling, was nothing short of a society sensation; her husband, on succeeding to the baronetcy, on the death of his father, 1883, at once settled £20,000 a year upon her; on his death, in December, 1899 (without issue), hers was the only name mentioned in his will, and she inherited everything he had possessed, including some 15,000 acres of land (mostly in Wiltshire), a substantial interest in Meux’s Brewery, an estate in Herts, houses in Park Lane and Paris, and some priceless jewels; resides mostly at Theobald’s Park, Waltham Cross, her Herts estate; has devoted herself largely to facilitating the training and education of promising aspirants to the stage, and in many ways deserves the respect of the profession for her liberal but unostentatious charities. Address: 21 Park Lane, W; Sheen House, East Sheen, Surrey; Theobald’s Park Waltham Cross, Herts; Dauntsey Manor House, Chippenham, Wilts.

Now let’s put the money into perspective. According to the Bank of England inflation calculator, £3,000,000 in 1878 would be £359,778,947.37 now be (2019). Her £20,000 yearly allowance would now be £2,190,961.54.