Vera Snepp aka "Lola"

Born: 1888.

Died: 1953.

Vera Snepp was born in 1888 to Alfred Neville Snepp, an apprentice electrician, and Laura Kate Snepp, at 23a Old Bond Street. Vera was baptized at Lyneham, Wiltshire on 5 September 1888, and registered in the July-August-September 1888 period. The baptismal record shows the family abode as London, Vera's occupation as "gentleman," while the vicar officiating was "Mr. Snepp." This was the Rev. Edward Maitland Snepp, Vera's paternal grandfather, Associate of King's College, London, who became incumbent at Lyneham in 1888.

In 1909, twenty-year-old Vera Neville married Henry Algernon Claude Graves (1877-1963), who became the 7th Baron Graves of Gravesend upon the death of his cousin in 1937. Their son, Peter Graves (1911-1994) was an actor who married actress and singer, Vanessa Lee (1920-1992). Vera divorced Graves in 1922 and married property developer and financier, Philip Ernest Hill (1873-1944); they divorced in 1933.

One of Miss Neville's earliest engagements was as an understudy to Gabrielle Ray. More substantially, she played Perlie in Grossmith and Laurillard's production of Victor Herbert's musical play The Only Girl, which opened at the Apollo Theatre, London, 25 September 1915. She appeared in Mr. Manhattan, a musical play at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, London, 30 March 1916; and in the musical comedy Houp La! (St. Martin's Theatre, London, 23 November 1916), with Nat. D. Ayer and Gertie Millar. She appeared in the War Economy Review (Ambassadors' Theatre, London, April 1917); and finally in A Certain Liveliness by Basil Macdonald Hastings (St. Martin's, February 1919).

She one of the most beautiful English women Aleister Crowley ever met. She went by the nickname "Lola" and was Crowley's mistress during his visits with George Cecil Jones in Coulsdon, Surrey in September 1906. Crowley chronicled their affair in poems which would later become part of Clouds without Water.

Lola! now look me straight between the eyes.

Our fate is come upon us. Tell me now

Love still shall arbitrate our destinies,

And joy inform the swart Plutonic brow.

She would also become the dedicatee of Gargoyles and the model for the Virgin of the World in "The Wake World" in Crowley's book Konx Om Pax.