Gertrude Eleanor Jennings (1877–1958) was a British theatrical author of the early twentieth century notable for her one-act social comedies. Life A daughter of British born Louis John Jennings, one-time editor of the New York Times (1870–1875) and subsequently MP for Stockport, and of American actress Madeleine Henriques. Her brother was book collector Richard Jennings who wrote for the Daily Mirror using the pseudonym "W.M.". She lived most of her adult life in The Boltons, SW10, in the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. She died aged 81 on 28 September 1958 at The Knoll House, in Fittleworth, Midhurst, Sussex. Career Jennings began her career as an actress touring for Ben Greet’s company in South Africa and America, also working under the name of Gertrude Henriques. Her plays were published by Samuel French Ltd in London under the names of Gertrude E. Jennings, Gertrude Jennings, or G. E. Jennings. Jennings was a prolific playwright writing 42 plays between 1910 and 1930; most of these were one-act plays. In 1914, her publisher Samuel French Ltd issued a collection of four of her early plays under the title Four One Act Plays which included "The Rest Cure," "Between the Soup and the Savoury," "The Pros and Cons," and "Acid Drops." The quality of her one act plays of this period are very fine. In his introduction to Five Birds In a Cage (1915) in the Fourth series of One Act Plays of Today, the editor J. W. Marriott wrote: “Miss Gertrude Jennings is a prolific writer of one act plays, and is immensely popular for a multitude of reasons. No humorist is more fully aware than she that people begin to be comic when they get into an awkward predicament, and as the situation becomes more and more hopeless the fun grows more furious. Her characters are clearly defined, and usually broadly contrasted in temperament as well as in social position. The scenes are invariably plausible incidents in present day life, and Miss Jennings intensifies effects and adds a touch of farce. Her play “Between the Soup and the Savoury” which was included in the third series of ‘’One Act Plays of Today’’, has pathos as well as laughter. “The Young Person In Pink” is the best known of her longer plays.” Five Birds In A Cage was broadcast on the radio in the first year of the British Broadcasting Corporation on 29