 Mabel Love was born Mabel Watson in Folkestone, England, the granddaughter of entertainer and ventriloquist William Edward Love (c. 1805–1867), and the second of actress Kate Watson's three daughters (another was Blanche Watson).Love made her stage debut at the age of twelve, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, playing "The Rose", in the first stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s "Alice in Wonderland".In 1887, she played one of the triplet children in "Masks and Faces" at London's Opera Comique, and the same year, she appeared in the Christmas pantomime at Covent Garden.