08 Nov 1868. November 8 (Sunday). Dined at Club, Simeon Solomon (age 28) there. He. introduced me to Mr. Oscar Browning. Billiards. Cooper said that there was a report that the young lady who threw herself off London Bridge a few days ago and was drowned, was no other than poor Ellen Terry (Mrs. G. F. Watts) and that it was after a quarrel with her sister about her continuing on the stage.⁹

Note 9. After the break-up of her marriage to G. F. Watts (age 51) in 1865, Ellen Terry (age 21) (1848-1928) had returned to the stage but in the spring of this year she threw up her engagement at the Queen’s Theatre, Long Acre, and disappeared. It was only after the incident of the body of a suicide case being mistakenly identified as hers that she informed her family that she was living in the country with E. W. Godwin. It was probably Sidney Cooper (1803-1902) the painter of sheep and cattle in landscape who repeated the story. Oscar Browning (1837-1923) was at this period an assistant master at Eton, notable both for his cultivated tastes and intellectual pursuits, and known to be a friend of Simeon Solomon.