Frances "Fanny" Abington (1737 – 4 March 1815) was a British

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 Actress.

Biography

She was born Frances Barton, the daughter of a private soldier, and began her career as a flower girl and a street singer. As a servant to a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 milliner, she learned about costume and acquired a knowledge of French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 which afterwards stood her in good stead. Her first appearance on the stage was at Haymarket in 1755 as Miranda in Mrs Centlivre's play, Busybody.

In 1756, on the recommendation of Samuel Foote

Samuel Foote

Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...

, she became a member of the Drury Lane

Drury Lane

Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....

 company, where she was overshadowed by Mrs Pritchard and Kitty Clive

Kitty Clive

Catherine "Kitty" Clive was a British actress of considerable repute on the stages of London.Most likely born in London, her father William Raftor was an Irishman and former officer in the French army under Louis XIV...

. In 1759, after an unhappy marriage to her music teacher James Abington, a royal trumpeter, she is mentioned in the bills as "Mrs Abington". Her first success was in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 as Lady Townley (in The Provok'd Husband by Vanbrugh

John Vanbrugh

Sir John Vanbrugh  – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...

 and Cibber

Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...

), and it was only after five years, on the pressing invitation of David Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

, that she returned to Drury Lane. There she remained for eighteen years, being the first to play more than thirty important characters, notably Lady Teazle (1777). In April 1772, when James Northcote

James Northcote

James Northcote RA , was an English painter.-Biography:He was born at Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, a poor watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he left his father and set up as a portrait painter. Four years later he went to London and was admitted as a pupil...

 saw her Miss Notable in Cibber

Colley Cibber

Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...

's The Lady's Last Stake, he remarked to his brother "I never saw a part done so excellent in all my life, for in her acting she has all the simplicity of nature and not the least tincture of the theatrical".

Her Shakespearean heroines -Beatrice, Portia

Portia (Merchant of Venice)

Portia is the heroine of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. A rich, beautiful, and intelligent heiress, she is bound by the lottery set forth in her father's will, which gives potential suitors the chance to choose between three caskets composed of gold, silver and lead...

, Desdemona

Desdemona (Othello)

Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello . Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the...

 and Ophelia - were no less successful than her comic characters - Miss Hoyden, Biddy Tipkin, Lucy Lockit and Miss Prue. It was as the last character in Love for Love that Sir Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...

 painted his best portrait of her. In 1782 she left Drury Lane for Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

. After an absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared, quitting it finally in 1799. Her ambition, personal wit and cleverness won her a distinguished position in society, in spite of her humble origin. Women of fashion copied her clothing, and a headdress she wore was widely adopted and known as the Abington cap.