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Hi Clem,

Have you tried looking for Dulcie on the "The Stage.co.uk" if you put archives after the name it should bring it up. Cost is £5.00 for the day.

Good luck,

Dee x

Hello,

I am looking for information on my grandfather, Shuthi Nandi Napoleon Oswald Banerjee Smart or his mother, Dulcie Lilian Barshell Smart.

Dulcie was an actress in the British theatre, she listed that as her occupation on the 1911 census. She was living with her mother and grandmother at 55 Windsor Rd. in Ealing at the time.

I'd be interested in any suggestions about her, I have no knowledge of British theatre, or where she may have been working. We believe it is possible she may have gone by the name of Lilian Barshell while on the stage.

As for my grandfather, Shuthi, he was illegitimate, and so the details of his birth, and his father, were hidden from us. (There are two different fathers named on a couple of different documents, his grandfather was listed as his father on his marriage certificate, and the other we believe to be a ficticious name that may have been used on his school records/military service records to make him and his mother "respectable." There is no father named on his birth cert and he was given his mother's maiden name as his surname.) Shuthi was with the RAF and died 3 Mar 1942 when his plane was shot down over Germany.

Family rumor has it that Shuthi's father was a prominent Indian. And my mother, Shuthi's daughter, knew Dulcie but knew her as Auntie Lilian, not as Shuthi's mother.

Dulcie married a man named John Joseph O'Connor in 1933 and they had a daughter named Mary Ann.

Any suggestions about where I could find out about British theatre, how I could find out about a birth with circumstances like my grandfather's, anything about these two relatives, just anything would be appreciated. We are a little desperate as that line of our family dies out with Shuthi if we can't figure it out.

Thanks you.

Clem