Hilda Wauton was born in London in December 1880, the daughter of Edward Brenton Wauton, a master at Uppingham School, Rutland and his wife, Elizabeth Anne Drewitt. At the age of nineteen in September 1900 she married Carl Leyel in St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. Carl, a young Nobleman of Swedish descent, was at the time secretary to Frank Benson and Hilda was a young actress in the Benson troupe. Their two sons Salvin and Christopher were born in 1902 and 1906 respectively.
Hilda Leyel devoted her time to organizing fancy-dress balls during World War I in aid of British servicemen. She had been a member (in 1911 the hon. Treasurer) of the Actresses Franchise League, an organization founded in 1908. The AFL was open to anyone involved in the theatrical profession and its aim was to work for women's enfranchisement by educational methods, selling suffrage literature and staging propaganda plays. The AFL neither supported nor condemned militancy. Membership of the AFL reached 550 in 1911 and by 1914 stood at 900. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 the AFL launched the Women's Theatre Camps Entertainments, which travelled round camps and hospitals. On 13th March 1918 the AFL took part in the victory parade organized by the National Union of Womens Suffrage Societies.
In 1920 Hilda Leyel was vice-chairman and organizer of the the Golden Ballot which raised over a quarter of a million pounds for ex-servicemen and various hospitals. Chairman of the Golden Ballot in 1920 was Major-General Sir Geoffrey Feilding who had served with distinction in the second Boer War and commanded a division of the Coldstream Guards in WW I. Joint treasurers were Robert Feilding, Earl of Denbigh and Desmond (ADC to King George V) and Sir William Tyrrell, then an assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. Despite the philanthropic activities to which the money was put, Hilda was prosecuted under the Betting and Lottery Acts. However she won the case, and in 1922 organised a New Golden Ballot. Summonses were issued at the outset by the Director of Public Prosecutions under the Lottery Act of 1823 and the Betting Act of 1853, but the defendants elected to be tried by Jury upon the latter charge. The outcome was that the holding of future ballots in order to raise money for charitable purposes was legalized in Great Britain.
Recently I discovered two British Pathe newsreel silent films that can be viewed from the internet. The first was made in 1920 and is entitled "THE LUCKY ONES. Mrs. C. F. Leyel - organiser - acts 'the Fairy Godmother' to the fortunate winners of the big prizes in the Golden Ballot." The typical winners cheques were for £2,500., a considerable sum for those days. See:
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=27716
The second, entitled "A MODERN FAIRY GODMOTHER - Mrs. Carl Leyel presents the lucky ones of the Golden Ballot with their prizes.", was made in 1922. The gentleman following Hilda out of the taxi is most definitely NOT Carl Leyel possibly he is the treasurer Sir William Tyrrell. See:
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=19574
Peter Leyel

The actress Lena Ashwell (1872-1957), who was on the Executive committee of the AFL together with Hilda Leyel certainly from 1913 onwards, gives several reminiscences of Hilda in her published writings.
By early 1917 Ashwell had gathered a core of hard-working and committed women, working behind the scenes in a London office, to administer, publicise and fund raise for the scheme. Suffragist journalist and subsequently the author of a post-war novel, Ann, Olga Hartley, had joined Ashwell in 1915 and worked throughout the war to promote the concerts and fund raising activities. Mrs C.F. Leyel, who had been with the Frank Benson theatre company and later administered the Culpepper Houses herb shops, took charge of raising money with the courage of an Arctic explorer [she] couples a persistence which most of us have lost at the age of five and pursues her way with ruthless cheerfulness(Myself a Player, p.204).
The second great fund-raiser took much of the latter half of the year to organise and continued to reap
benefit into 1918. This was the somewhat unconventional bazaar and tombola, held over three days in December (3,4,5) at the Royal Albert Hall. This Petticoat Lane Fair was first announced in October and was a major organisational feat, masterminded by Mrs Leyel, supported by Elizabeth Asquith. A huge tombola, probably illegal if the authorities had recognised it as the lottery it really was, formed a major part of the event; donated prizes came from furriers, dress makers, hatters, jewellers and many other businesses, and included a first prize of two acres of land in the Chiltern Hills, live stock such as a prize bull, pedigree puppies and a pig35, a trip to America and other enticing objects. In addition there were many stalls selling produce, arts and crafts, toys, signed books and flowers. There were specially scripted early evening tableaux of fashion clothes, entitled The Nymphs of the Forest, A Dream of Blighty and The Seven Ages of Woman, and the final night was given over to a fancy dress ball for munitions workers.
In Modern Troubadours Ashwell describes the publicity. Following the design of a coloured picture
poster, it occurred to Mrs Leyel that pillar-boxes formed admirable posting stations, and one morning
London woke to find nearly every pillar-box in the West End surrounded with this delightful picture
(p.115-6). The Government obviously noted the impact this made, for afterwards pillar-boxes were
strictly reserved for Government posters (ibid). The Fair received extensive press coverage, which
frequently made reference to the many women involved in its success, and an enthusiastic response from the public ensured good attendance and income.
Peter Leyel

Thoroughly enjoying the information you've been posting on your Grandmother Peter, the film clips are delightful and can be embedded on our website, I'll get on to that over the next few weeks once life settles down. The chap in the Fairy godmother film in the hat didn't look very happy when he saw the check, was it only for 1d I wonder lol!

I can't get over how youthful your Grandmother looked, so different from the classic Van dyke pictures that we have on the website, do you have any photos of her at this age that you could send me a scan of?

Please keep the information coming, it's all proving very useful for the booklet I'm writing

Debs