Profile: Wilna L Constable

Loft credits (click a play title to view details)

• Mrs Jones, The Silver Box (1923)

Notes

The Rev Mrs Constable and her husband founded the Warwick and Leamington Dramatic Study Club at their home in Warwick in 1922; at that first meeting, she was elected the Club’s Secretary.

As a minister in the Unitarian Church, Wilna was fond of incorporating dramatic readings from the likes of Shakespeare and Shaw into her services in place of the regular bible lessons. ‘Inspiration,‘ she said, ‘doesn‘t cease with the final chapter of Revelation.‘

In 1929 the Constables emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, where Wilna became the country's first ordained woman minister and was instrumental in getting the Marriage Act changed to allow women to officiate at weddings. The Constables then had spells in Vancouver and South Africa before eventually settling in Orlando, Florida where Wilna died in 1967, followed a year later by William.

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