In addition to renting 19 and 19A Edith Grove, and putting them together, the Drapers also rented a third house right next door, number 17 Edith Grove. This they used as a guest house for visitors. This 17 Edith Grove is very interesting, because in fact the first fixed address we have for Suggia in London is 17 Edith Grove. There is a letter she wrote in 1917 that gives Edith Grove as the return address, so she was definitely living there by then; I believe she was living at 17 Edith Grove well before 1917, but I have no direct proof of this. The Drapers left London shortly after the war broke out, vacating the three houses on Edith Grove. How did Suggia come to live at 17 Edith Grove? How did that house pass from the Drapers to Suggia? I have no idea. Muriel Draper’s papers are stored at Yale University and I’ve looked into them, but I can find no evidence of transactions between the Drapers and Suggia on the question of 17 Edith Grove. In any case, 17 Edith Grove stands as a fascinating link between Suggia and an extraordinary moment in musical history in the “Draper cave.”
Suggia was definitely living in London by 1917, and by then she was already well-known and very highly respected. It was hard to build a career during World War I but that is exactly what Suggia did. As soon as the War ended and the pace of musical life picked up again, she was in enormous demand. She played at the best halls with the best conductors and accompanists. She was one of the preeminent solo musicians on the British stage in the 1920s.
(Anita Mercier)