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324 Pages·2008·2.51 MB·English

by  Dannie Chalk

The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate school

The College of Liberal Arts

ACTRESSES ON THE LONDON STAGE, 1670-1755:

A PROSOPOGRAPHICAL STUDY

A Dissertation in

English

by

Susan M. Martin

© 2008 Susan M. Martin

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

May 2008
ii
The dissertation of Susan M. Martin was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Robert D. Hume
Evan Pugh Professor of English
Thesis Adviser
Chair of Committee

Clement C. Hawes
Professor of English

John T. Harwood
Senior Director, Teaching and Learning with Technology
Associate Professor of English
Associate Professor of Science & Technology

Laura Knoppers
Professor of English

Philip Jenkins
Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities

Robert Edwards
Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Director of Graduate Studies

*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School.
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Abstract

When the London theatres re-opened after the restoration of the monarchy in
1660, actresses appeared on the public English stage for the first time. At first a novelty,
women playing women’s roles became not only desirable but essential to theatrical
operations henceforth. This thesis argues that in order to gain an accurate picture of the
place which women occupied in the theatre, and how this new occupation functioned,
actresses at different levels need to be considered. To this end I will employ the technique
of prosopography (group biography) for tracking and analyzing the professional and
personal experiences of a significant number of actresses in the long eighteenth-century.
For a prosopographical study two elements need to be in place, (1) sufficient data
for a detailed survey, which can provide credible results, to be carried out, and (2) a
system which enables the relevant data to be extracted from the information available. I
contend that the advantage of this method, often employed by historians and social
scientists, is that it allows for consideration not only of the major actresses of the period,
but also the minor company members. My aim is not to create detailed biographies of
individuals but to look for patterns and trends in the group as a whole and thus provide as
broad a view of female acting careers in the eighteenth-century as extant records will
allow.
Table of Contents
Abstract iii
Preface v
Acknowledgements vii
Chapter One: The Profession of ‘Actress’ and
the Potentialities of Prosopography 1

Chapter Two: Sample 1 1670-1675 26
Susanah Elliott 28
Margaret Rutter 29
Eleanor Leigh, née Dixon 31
Elizabeth Barry 34

Chapter Three: Sample 2 1710-1715 87
Mrs. Clark(e) 90
Mrs. Hunt 91
Hester Booth, née Santlow 99
Anne Oldfield 127

Chapter Four: Sample 3 1750-1755 173
Sarah Toogood 187
Miss(es) Davis 189
Jane Green, née Hippisley 193
Kitty Clive 207

Chapter Five: Conclusion 252

Works Frequently Cited 288
Appendix A: London Theatre Chronology 289
Appendix B: Actors’ careers 298

Appendix C: Will transcriptions
Hester Booth 307
Barton Booth 311
Anne Oldfield 313
Jane Green 317
v

Preface
Actresses on the London Stage 1670-1755: A Prosopographical Study
investigates the development of acting as a profession for women from its early years to
the middle of the eighteenth century. During this time period, women performing on the
public stage progressed from being a novelty to being a standard part of theatrical
operations; this study examines how the actresses engaged with this “new” profession.
The method of prosopography (group biography) focuses on gathering as much
information as possible, about as many members of a given population as possible, and
thus allowing group patterns and variations to become discernible. This approach is ideal
for the study of actresses in the long eighteenth century since it takes into consideration
not only the experiences of all the members of the group but also allows for variations
within the amount, and type, of data available. Since prosopography has not previously
been used either in the context of the eighteenth century, or theatre history, Chapter One
explains both the method and the way in which I have applied it to my subject matter.
Since the number of actresses active in the years 1670-1755 is too great for this
study to cover completely, I have chosen three sample groups—1670-1675, 1710-1715,
and, 1750-1755—wherein all actresses active, whether at the beginning or end of their
careers, are included. These groups are not statistically random but have been chosen to
give as broad coverage as possible of a time when many changes took place in the
theatre, the drama performed, and the society in which they operated. Chapter Two deals
with the 1670-1675 sample group, Chapter Three with 1710-1715, and Chapter Four with
1750-1755; all are organized in a similar manner.
vi
Each chapter concerned with a sample group examines the professional and
personal lives of four actresses whose careers exemplify four different “types”: a very
brief involvement with the theatre and little or nothing known about the actress’s
personal life; a career spanning a number of years where there is some detail on
professional activity but little on personal life; a longer career where information on both
professional and personal lives is available, but the actress in question remained minor; a
long career with professional and personal information extant, where the actress became
one the leading players of her day. For each actress all extant information is examined
both in the context of her individual career and how that career compares with, and
relates to, those of others in the same sample group.
The final chapter draws together the material from the three sample groups and
discusses the patterns that have emerged from the data regarding the actresses’
professional, and personal, lives. An important part of this study is the consideration of
how the professional, and personal, overlap and interweave—previous works on
eighteenth century actresses have tended to focus on one aspect or the other. I contend
that, only through a detailed examination of all professional and personal extant
information, can conclusions be drawn about the development of acting as a profession
for women in the long eighteenth century.
vii
Acknowledgements

A dissertation is rarely the product of individual effort and my work is certainly
no exception. I want to thank all the people who have helped me throughout this long
process.
My advisors Robert D. Hume and Clement C. Hawes have provided advice and
guidance above and beyond the call of duty—my thanks to them for plowing through
endless drafts of the “weekly pages” which have, indeed, finally become this dissertation.
Thank you also to my committee, John Harwood, Laura Knoppers, and Philip Jenkins,
for their help and support.
Many and heartfelt thanks go to all my friends, on both sides of the Atlantic, for
their constant encouragement, sense of humor, and willingness to listen—at all hours of
the day and night.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my mother, Catherine Martin, and to
the memory of my late father, Patrick Ormond Martin, both of whom have always
encouraged me to take the more interesting road.
1

CHAPTER 1: The Profession of ‘Actress’ and the Potentialities of
Prosopography

When the London theatres re-opened after the restoration of the monarchy in
1660, actresses appeared on the public English stage for the first time. At first these
women were a novelty, something new and scandalous to attract public attention to
theatres that had been officially closed during the interregnum. However, within a short
space of time, as the public grew to expect women on the London stage, women playing
women’s roles became not only desirable but essential to theatrical operations. The aim
of this study is to examine this new profession for women in the long eighteenth-century
and to analyze the personal and professional patterns that emerge from consideration of
the data gathered.

Actresses in the long eighteenth-century: existing scholarship.
While a certain amount of scholarly attention has been directed towards the question of
why women became acceptable on stage in the Restoration era and a number of
individual biographies have been written about the leading actresses, no one has yet
attempted to pull together the collective experiences of these first female actors. In the
past, the fragmentary nature of extant records combined with the large number of
individuals involved would have made such a study a very daunting task.
Contemporary eighteenth-century biographies of actresses such as Ann Oldfield
tend to be sensationalist in nature and mercenary in aim— several accounts were rushed
into print at the time of her death to capitalize on public interest. More recent works
either concentrate on a single actress, for example Mary Nash’s The Provok’d Wife
2
(1977)1, a study of the actress Susannah Cibber, or look at a group of leading performers,
Elizabeth Howe’s The first English actresses (1992) and Gilli Bush-Bailey’s Treading
the Bawds (2006)2.
The studies which have been done on the role of the actress in Restoration and
eighteenth-century theatre have been few in number, highly selective in their choice of
material, and, especially with the older works, given to sweeping generalizations rather
than detailed analysis. In the twentieth century, interest in the first females on the British
stage seems to occur sporadically, with a number of works appearing in the late 1920s
and early 1930s.3 These works tend to be conversational in tone, imparting to the reader
long forgotten tidbits of gossip and rumour, with little, if any signs of the academic rigour
demanded today. For example, Rosamond Gilder, in 1931, states that
The actresses [of the Restoration] were particularly difficult to control.
They were forever dashing off on private business, handing over their parts
to some more stolid sister who at the moment had no lover to divert her from
her duties.4
While this pronouncement may or may not be true, Gilder offers no definite evidence to
support her claim. Her project was very ambitious, probably overly so, as it attempted to
trace the ancestry of women on the stage from the classical Greek and Roman eras
through to their emergence on the stages of continental Europe and then to England. Her

1 Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977.
2 Elizabeth Howe The first English actresses: Women and drama 1660-1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992); Gilli Bush-Bailey Treading the Bawds: Actresses and playwrights on the Late-
Stuart stage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006) .
3 For example: Otis Skinner Mad Folk of the Theatre: Ten Studies in Temperament (Indianapolis: The
Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1928); Henry Wysham Lanier The First English Actresses, From the Initial
Appearance of Women on the Stage in 1660 till 1700 (New York, The Players Series, 1930); Rosamund
Gilder Enter the Actress: The First Women in the Theatre (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1931).
4 Gilder p. 147.
3
mission seems to have been, at least in part, to try to reclaim the character of the
Restoration actress— she freely acknowledges that many were “light-hearted and light-
headed” (p. 150) but goes on to describe others who
devoted their whole existence to the theatre, who lived and breathed
and had their being within its bounds, acted an inconceivable number
of parts and brought to their profession a hardy devotion which made
them true mainstays of the stage. (p. 150)
Gilder seems to divide these first actresses into sinners and saints, leaving little room for
any consideration of their actual contribution to the theatrical life of the time. Enter the
Actress, while giving an interesting view some of the concerns of theatre historians in the
1930s, belongs to the “genteel amateur” genre and unfortunately provides little
substantial scholarship from which to build more detailed investigations.
In his A History of English Drama 1660-19005, first volume published in 1923,
Allardyce Nicoll refers to the shady reputations and mercenary nature of many of the
first actresses while grudgingly acknowledging that they may have had some talent:
We have to recognize that some of these women had a true artistic
genius for the stage: but, at the same time, we must be careful not to
assume that they always aided unselfishly in the interpretation of the
works of dramatic art. The majority must have thought more of a fine
gown, or maybe of a coach and pair, than of a fine play. (Vol. 1, p. 72)
Nicoll does not find it necessary to describe the actors of the Restoration in such terms,
Thomas Betterton, Michael Mohun, Charles Hart, are all discussed only in terms of the
roles which they played and the acting styles which they adopted; no mention is made of

5 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923 - 1959.