Priscilla Horton
Encyclopedia
Priscilla Horton, later Priscilla German Reed (2 January 1818 - 18 March 1895), was a popular English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 singer and actress, known for her role as Ariel in W. C. Macready's production of The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

in 1838 and "fairy" burlesques at Covent Garden Theatre. Later, she was known, along with her husband, Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...

, for creating the family-friendly German Reed Entertainments. There, she was a mentor to W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

, and her performances inspired Gilbert to create some of his famous contralto roles.

Life and career

Horton was born in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England. Her parents were Thomas Horton and Barbara Westwater.

Early career

She had been performing on the stage in London since the age of ten, when she played the Gipsy Girl in Guy Mannering at the Surrey Theatre
Surrey Theatre
The Surrey Theatre began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided contemporary London entertainment of both horsemanship and drama...

. The next year, Horton sang at Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens was a pleasure garden, one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London, England from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, the site was believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660 with the first mention being...

. In 1830, she appeared at Covent Garden Theatre as Mealey Mouth in Harlequin, Pat, and Bat. In 1834, at the Royal Victorian Theatre
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

, Horton played Julia in a musical adaptation of Guy Mannering
Guy Mannering
Guy Mannering or The Astrologer is a novel by Sir Walter Scott, published anonymously in 1815. According to an introduction that Scott wrote in 1829, he had originally intended to write a story of the supernatural, but changed his mind soon after starting...

, Kate in Sheridan Knowles's melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green, Romeo, Desdemona in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

, and Oscar in Gustavus the Third. In 1937, she joined in W. C. Macready's company at Covent Garden Theatre. There she played Mopsa in The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...

, the Boy in Henry V, and the Fool in King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

. After other successful roles, Horton played Ariel in Macready's production of The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

in 1838 at Covent Garden.

Blond and blue eyed, Horton had sometimes played in "trouser roles", which, by the time Horton entered the profession, had lost much of their risqué aura. She was a favourite of James Planché
James Planche
James Robinson Planché was a British dramatist, antiquary and officer of arms. Over a period of approximately 60 years he wrote, adapted, or collaborated on 176 plays in a wide range of genres including extravaganza, farce, comedy, burletta, melodrama and opera...

, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 and Madame Vestris and was known for her agile dancing and clear contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 singing voice. Historian Paul Buczkowski wrote of her, "Horton brought a lively intelligence to her roles, and was almost as highly lauded in tragedy (for instance, as Ophelia in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

and the Fool in King Lear) as in comedy. She would appear in most of Planché’s later works, substantially enriching them."

From 1840 to 1847, Horton joined Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...

's company at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...

, where she first played Ophelia in 1840. The Athenaeum
Athenaeum (magazine)
The Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. It had a reputation for publishing the very best writers of the age....

wrote: "The only striking novelty in the performance is the Ophelia of Miss P. Horton, which approaches very nearly to the wild pathos of the original in one scene, and is touching and beautiful in all." The same year, she created the role of Georgina Vesey in Lord Lytton's Money. In 1842, she sang the role of Acis in Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

's Acis and Galatea. At the Haymarket Theatre from 1843-47, she appeared in many of her Planché Christmas and Easter pieces. During these years, she also appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 as Philidel in Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

's opera King Arthur (1842) and created the girl/boy roles of Myrtina/Fortunio in Planché's Fortunio and his Seven Gifted Servants (1843).

Marriage and later years

She married Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...

 in 1844. From 1847-54, she continued to play roles at the Haymarket, Drury Lane and Olympic
Olympic Theatre
The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...

 theatres as well as in provincial tours. One 1851 role was Hecate in Macready's farewell Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

.


In the spring of 1855, the German Reeds presented the first performance of "Miss P. Horton's Illustrative Gatherings
German Reed Entertainment
German Reed Entertainment was founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed together with his wife, Priscilla Reed née Horton...

," musical theatre performances usually consisting of one or two brief comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

s designed for a minimal number of characters and performed with either the piano and harmonium
Harmonium
A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...

 or a small ensemble of musicians. These soon became "Mr. And Mrs. German Reed's Entertainments", presented at the Royal Gallery of Illustration
Royal Gallery of Illustration
The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a performance venue located at 14 Regent Street near Waterloo Place in London, in what was formerly the home of John Nash, designer of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and other urban improvements undertaken at the commission of George IV.From 1855 to about 1876,...

 on Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

 (and later at St. George's Hall
St. George's Hall (London)
St. George's Hall was a theatre located in Langham Place, Regent Street in London, built in 1867, which closed in 1966. The hall could accommodate between 800 and 900 persons, or up to 1,500 persons including the galleries...

). To help lend respectability to their family-friendly entertainments, they called their establishment the "Gallery" of Illustration, rather than a "theatre", and the pieces they put on were called "entertainments," rather than plays, extravaganzas, or burlesques, to interest family audiences who were afraid of the bad reputation in which the professional theatre was regarded at the time.

The entertainments focused on satire and "clean" comedy, eschewing any hint of the vulgarity that permeated the London stage. Reed himself composed the music for many of these pieces, and often appeared in them, together with Mrs. German Reed. Horton was a mentor to dramatist W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

, who wrote six short operas for the German Reeds, each with a prominent role for Horton, and these roles became the pattern for his later contralto characters in the Savoy Operas.

Thomas retired in 1871, and Horton, together with their son, Alfred (1847-1895), continued the entertainments until her retirement in 1879, when Alfred took over their production until 1895. She retired from performing in 1879. She died at the age of 77 at Bexley Heath, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England.

External links

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