Sheila Birling (played by Sylvia Bitting)

...was born in Brumley, England in 1886, the daughter of Arthur and Sybil Birling. From an early age, Sheila was a precocious child, which tended to delight her doting father and exasperate her mother, with whom she would always have a less-than-warm relationship. She attended preparatory school in Brumley until age 10. There, she especially excelled in history and geography; additionally, she received private tutoring in French. She continued in school in Brumley until age 13, when she began boarding at the Buttershaw upper school, not far from home. Here, she excelled in English literature, and also became particularly enamored with the dramatic arts. She was a member of the Buttershaw Players, taking roles in several productions during her 5th and 6th Forms. Additionally, she enjoyed equestrian training, though unlike many of her friends, she preferred riding socially to competitive riding. At age 16 while on a weekend visit to a school chum’s country home in the Cotswolds, she met Captain Ronald Forrester, her friend’s cousin. They spent a great deal of time together that weekend, riding, walking, talking, dancing and Sheila became completely infatuated with Forrester. For the next several months, they conducted a correspondence, mainly maintained by Sheila. However, on a holiday visit home, her mother discovered some of these letters and, acting quickly to stop the infatuation, Sybil Birling arranged to send her daughter to live with her unmarried sister Agnes in the family home in Reading. There, angry with her mother and pining for Forrester, Sheila completed her education at Highdown School, but lacked enthusiasm and interest in her studies, extracurricular activities or social engagements.

By coincidence, in 1905 while shopping in Reading, Sheila came upon an outdoor meeting where suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst was passionately speaking. Enthralled, it was all Sheila could speak about upon returning to her aunt’s house that evening. However, fearing that women’s suffrage might now become Sheila’s new passion, supplanting Captain Forrester, Agnes chose not to tell her sister Sybil, but rather proposed a long tour of the continent with Sheila and they left soon thereafter.

Two things occurred back in England while Sheila and her aunt toured Europe. In late 1905, she received word that Captain Forrester had been killed in a riding accident. Then, in early 1906, while in Italy, she received news that her father had become ill. She and her aunt quickly returned to England with Sheila going back to Brumley. Unable to raise the spirits or improve the health of her father, she acceded to her mother’s wishes that she assist her at the factory. Neither woman knew anything of business, so they were generally quite ineffective there. While her mother’s motivation was primarily to save face and economic status, Sheila was primarily interested in pleasing her father so that he might return to his former self. When Sheila suggested that women could be hired as part of the factory’s labor force, while her mother inherently disagreed with having female workers, she agreed when she realized that she could replace many higher-paid male workers with women at much lower wages. Despite their diverse objectives and outlooks, rather than exacerbating their strained relationship, their sharing of a common activity tended to ease some of their former animosity.

In late 1906, she met Gerald Croft when he and his father George visited them with a proposal to buy out her father. For this mainly, she initially did not like the Crofts; however, in 1908, after her father had recovered, Gerald Croft called on the family at home to extend his regards and good wishes. And later, when her father became Lord Mayor, Sheila had the opportunity to see Gerald at many civic functions. In 1911, Gerald began to call on Sheila and became a regular fixture at the Birling home. During this time, Sheila began to attend social and civic functions with her mother, and, with the family’s return to economic health, otherwise occupied her time with shopping.