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A thread for Dorothea Jordan, born #OTD 1761, genius of the stage. She fled rape and coercion at the hands of a theatre manager in her native Dublin, arriving in England pregnant by him.
She worked as a strolling player until her child was 3. Then she got her break at Drury Lane.
She worked as a strolling player until her child was 3. Then she got her break at Drury Lane.
She made her name in sparky roles in farces, sometimes playing children, and was celebrated for her 'breeches roles', ie those in which she wore mens' clothes. An energetic comic actor, she could also be soulful and tragic. Viola in Twelfth Night was a great Venn of her strengths
She began a relationship with the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV) in 1791. Mocking satirical cartoons recalled her role in The Devil To Pay, in which a humble woman is magically transfigured into a fine lady. Others made fun of her name 'Jordan', slang for chamber pot.
She and the Duke moved to Bushy Park, west of London; she was the breadwinner, commuting in to her acting jobs. She often took some of her children (she had 14 in total, one dying in infancy) with her, and each year appeared on stage with her current baby
She was generally presented as a comic genius in counterpart to Sarah Siddons' tragic one. Comedy was a natural gift; tragedy was a studied discipline. Mrs J was earthy and untutored, Mrs S cultivated and well bred. Mrs Siddons was married; Mrs Jordan was not.
She "rioted in her fine animal spirits and gave more pleasure than any other actress, because she had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself" (Mary Hazlitt) and contemporary images convey the youthful, energetic, wild-haired stage presence she must have had.
(Mrs Jordan was so iconic that William Henry Ireland wrote a role just for her in his forged Shakespeare play Vortigern & Rowena: the character of Flavia wore breeches and performed a song. He even got to see her perform it during its brief and dramatic run at Drury Lane)
By 1811 the Duke was under pressure to produce legitimate heirs. Eligible princesses were understandably put off by Dora, his high-profile partner of 20 years and mother of his ten kids. Here the Clarences in middle age, visiting Fox and his ex-courtesan wife Elizabeth Armistead.
So Mrs Jordan had to go. The Duke ended their relationship, taking their sons: Dora's custody of their girls was dependent on her quitting the stage. This she could not afford to do. She went from the involved mother of a big busy family to losing custody even of her 4-year-old.
Public sympathy was very much with her. The Duke's undignified pursuit of wealthy heiresses was lampooned in the satirical press. Here Mrs Jordan and her children are background his wooing, lamenting his lack of gratitude for 'Twenty years of Care & Motherly Attention'.
It seems like a volte-face considering how cruelly she was portrayed in her youth, but the press' main opprobrium had always been reserved for the selfish, careless royal sons. It called them out on frittering away public money on mistresses AND on casting aside a common-law wife
Mrs Jordan died in France in 1816. She wrote "It is not [...] the absence of those comforts I have all my life been accustomed to, that is killing me by inches; it is the loss of my only remaining comfort, the hope I used to live on from time to time, of seeing my children."
The Duke of Clarence married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen two years later, but Dora's fate was not forgotten. This print of 1821 visits her ghost upon him: 'behold the unhappy victim of your avarice and debauchery'.
Perhaps her memory really did torment him. When he became king in 1831, fifteen years after her death, he commissioned this statue to be placed in Westminster Abbey 'beside the monuments of the Queens'. Sir Francis Chantrey completed it in 1834, but it was never placed.
In some ways it's a fitting tribute to a woman who spent most of her adult life with a baby in her arms. But the emblems of her profession are tucked away at her feet. Lord Melbourne suggested it be titled 'Sacred to the memory of an affectionate Mother'.
