Fanny
Kemble,
the daughter of the actors Charles and Marie Kemble, was born in London
on 27th November, 1809. She made her first appearance on the stage
when she appeared as Juliet in her father's production of Romeo
and Juliet
on 5th October, 1829. Fanny was a great success and this role was
followed by several others in her father's Covent
Garden Theatre.
The theatre was £13,000 in debt when Kemble
started her career as an actress but she was so popular than within
a short period it was back in profit. Fanny had a sparkling personality
and she soon had several elderly admirers including Sidney
Smith, Thomas Macaulay and George
Stephenson, who invited her to the opening of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway.
In 1833 Fanny Kemble toured America with her father. While in New
York she met and married Pierce Butler, a southern planter. Fanny
gave up acting for a while but after their divorce in 1848 she returned
to the stage. As well as appearing in plays, Fanny gave Shakespearean
readings.
Kemble retired to Lennox, Massachusetts, where she wrote several autobiographical
works including Journal
of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation
(1863), Record
of a Childhood
(1878) and Records
of Later Life
(1882). Fanny
Kemble
died in London on 15th January, 1893 and five days later was buried
at Kensal Green Cemetery.
(1)
Fanny Kemble, a leading actress, was invited to attend the opening
of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though
the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people
lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as
we flew by them. We travelled at 35 miles an hour (swifter than
a bird flies). When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying
was quite delightful.
I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution
of places, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to
make she rejoined me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which
was considerably damped by finding that she was frightened to
death, and intent upon nothing but devising means of escaping
from a situation which appeared to her to threaten with instant
annihilation herself and all her travelling companions.
When we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it
began to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled
to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellers
was of the lowest orders of mechanics and artisans, among whom
great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the government
at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage,
full of influential personages, in which the Duke of Wellington
sat.
High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had
been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver,
evidently set there as a representative man, to protest against
the triumph of machinery and the gain and glory which the wealthy
Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it.
(2)
Elizabeth
Blackwell, Pioneer
Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)
At one
time Fanny Kemble was giving a series of Shakespearian readings
in New York, and often rendered generous help to benevolent institutions
by the use other great talent. We hoped that she might aid our
struggling infirmary by giving a public reading in its behalf.
So on one occasion I called with our fellow-worker Dr. Zackrzewska
at the hotel where she was staying to prefer our request. She
received us courteously, listened with kindness to an explanation
of the object of our visit and of the needs of the infirmary;
but when she heard that the physicians of the institution were
women she sprang up to her full height, turned her flashing eyes
upon us, and with the deepest tragic tones other magnificent voice
exclaimed: "Trust a woman - as a doctor! Never!"
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