Nancy Dawson was the stage name of Ann Newton (c.1728-1767), an English dancer and actress. She rose to fame performing a solo rendition of a hornpipe between acts in The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1759. The hornpipe tune is now known as "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". [1]
One source says she was born in London in 1730. [2] Another source says she may have been born at Axminster, Devon. [3] At sixteen she joined the company of a certain Griffin, a puppet-showman, who taught her to dance; and a figure dancer of Sadler's Wells, seeing her performance, found her a place at his own theatre. As the story goes, her figure, novelty and technical excellence made her career. [4] The hornpipe tune was said to be by Thomas Arne and is known now as "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". [2]
In her second summer season at Sadler's Wells Nancy Dawson was promoted to the part of Columbine, and in the following winter she made her first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre under Edward Shuter, in The Prophetess by Thomas Betterton. [3] On 22 April 1758 the Merry Wives of Windsor was played for her benefit. In October 1759, during the run of the Beggar's Opera, the man who danced the hornpipe among the thieves fell ill, and his place was taken by Nancy Dawson. From that moment she became a celebrity. The production enjoyed an unusually long run, and the house was crowded nightly. [4]
Nancy Dawson was induced by an increase of salary to move to Drury Lane, where she appeared for the first time on 23 September 1760 in the Beggar's Opera. Here for the next three years she danced in its frequent revivals, and in a variety of Christmas entertainments, such as ‘Harlequin's Invasion,’ ‘Fortunatus,’ and the ‘Enchanter’ in which there also appeared the elder Joseph Grimaldi and the Miss Baker who succeeded Nancy Dawson in popular favour as a dancer. On Christmas Eve 1763 a pantomime called the ‘Rites of Hecate’ was produced at Drury Lane, and on that day and the 26th of the month Nancy Dawson appeared; but her name is absent from the bills of subsequent representations. [4]
Her death took place at Haverstock Hill on 26 May 1767. She was buried in the graveyard belonging to the parish of St George the Martyr, Bloomsbury, behind the Foundling Hospital. [4]
The hornpipe by which she danced into fame was performed to a tune (thought to be probably by Thomas Arne) [3] which then had words set, a song called Ballad of Nancy Dawson attributed to George Alexander Stevens. It was for a long time the popular air of the day. It was set with variations for the harpsichord as Miss Dawson's hornpipe, was introduced in Carey's and Bickerstaffe's opera ‘Love in a Village,’ and is mentioned as ‘Nancy Dawson’ by Oliver Goldsmith in the epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer . [4]
Of all the girls in our town,
The red, the black, the fair, the brown,
That dance and prance it up and down,
There's none like Nancy Dawson.
Her easy mien, her shape so neat,
She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet;
Her every motion’s so complete,
I die for Nancy Dawson.
See how she comes to give surprise,
With joy and pleasure in her eyes:
To give delight she always tries,
So means my Nancy Dawson.
Was there no task, t’obstruct the way,
No shutter old, no house so gay,
A bet of fifty pounds I’d lay,
That I gained Nancy Dawson.
See how the opera takes a run
Exceeding Hamlet, Lear and Lun
Though in it there would be no fun,
Was’t not for Nancy Dawson.
Though beard and brent charm ev’ry night
And female peachum’s justly right,
And filch and lockit please the sight,
‘Tis kept by Nancy Dawson.
See little davey strut and puff,
‘Confound the opera and such stuff,
My house is never full enough,
A curse on Nancy Dawson”.
Though G[arric]k he has had his day
And forced the town his laws t’obey,
With Jonny Rich is come in play,
With the help of Nancy Dawson.
In Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin novels, one of the great guns on HMS Surprise is named “Nancy Dawson”, and in the 1984 novel The Far Side of the World the hands are piped to noon grog to the song of the same name.
Michael Arne was an English composer, harpsichordist, organist, singer, and actor. He was the son of the composer Thomas Arne and the soprano Cecilia Young, a member of the famous Young family of musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Like his father, Arne worked primarily as a composer of stage music and vocal art song, contributing little to other genres of music. He wrote several songs for London's pleasure gardens, the most famous of which is Lass with the Delicate Air (1762). A moderately prolific composer, Arne wrote nine operas and collaborated on at least 15 others. His most successful opera, Cymon (1767), enjoyed several revivals during his lifetime and into the early nineteenth century.
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
Charles Dibdin was an English composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor. With over 600 songs to his name, for many of which he wrote both the lyrics and the music and performed them himself, he was in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter. He is best known as the composer of "Tom Bowling", one of his many sea songs, which often features at the Last Night of the Proms. He also wrote about 30 dramatic pieces, including the operas The Waterman (1774) and The Quaker (1775), and several novels, memoirs and histories. His works were admired by Haydn and Beethoven.
Henry Carey was an English poet, dramatist and composer. He is remembered as an anti-Walpolean satirist and also as a patriot. Several of his melodies continue to be sung today, and he was widely praised in the generation after his death. Because he worked in anonymity, selling his own compositions to others to pass off as their own, contemporary scholarship can only be certain of some of his poetry, and a great deal of the music he composed was written for theatrical incidental music. However, under his own name and hand, he was a prolific songwriter and balladeer, and he wrote the lyrics for almost all of these songs. Further, he wrote numerous operas and plays. His life is illustrative of the professional author in the early 18th century. Without inheritance or title or governmental position, he wrote for all of the remunerative venues, and yet he also kept his own political point of view and was able to score significant points against the ministry of the day. Further, he was one of the leading lights of the new "Patriotic" movement in drama.
John Rich (1692–1761) was an important director and theatre manager in 18th-century London. He opened The New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1714, which he managed until he built the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1732. He managed Covent Garden until 1761, putting on ever more lavish productions. He popularised pantomime on the English stage and played a dancing and mute Harlequin himself from 1717 to 1760 under the stage name of "Lun." Rich's version of the servant character, Arlecchino, moved away from the poor, dishevelled, loud, and crude character, to a colourfully-dressed, silent Harlequin, performing fanciful tricks, dances and magic. Rich's decision to be a silent character was influenced by his unappealing voice, of which he was well aware, and the British idea of the Harlequin character was heavily inspired by Rich's performances.
Catherine Clive Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English musical theatre. She was celebrated both in high-style parts – singing, for instance, Handel’s music for her in Messiah, Samson, and The Way of the World – and in low-style ballad opera roles. Her likeness was printed and traded in unprecedented volume. She championed women’s rights throughout her career.
The Duenna is a three-act comic opera, mostly composed by Thomas Linley the elder and his son, Thomas Linley the younger, to an English-language libretto by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. At the time, it was considered one of the most successful operas ever staged in England, and its admirers included Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Byron.
Richard Yates was an English comic actor, who worked at the Haymarket Theatre and Drury Lane among others, appearing in David Garrick's King Lear. He also worked in theatre management, and set up the New Theatre in Birmingham in 1773. Both his first wife, Elizabeth Mary and Mary Anne Graham were actresses.
Thomas Lowe was an English tenor and actor. He appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and at Covent Garden, and frequently performed in London's pleasure gardens. He was particularly associated with the works of Thomas Arne and George Frideric Handel.
Mary Wells, afterwards Mrs. Sumbel, was an English actress and memoirist.
Thomas King (1730–1805) was an English actor, known also as a theatre manager and dramatist.
Thomas Hull (1728–1808) was an English actor and dramatist.
John Henry Johnstone (1749–1828), also known as 'Jack' Johnstone or 'Irish' Johnstone, was an Irish actor, comedian and singer. He was a notable performer of Stage Irishman roles.
Isabella Hill, better known as Mrs Howard Paul, was an English actress, operatic singer and actress-manager of the Victorian era, best remembered for creating the role of Lady Sangazure in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Sorcerer (1877).
Margaret Kennedy was a contralto singer and actress. She was best known for her performances in male roles, especially in the operas of Thomas Arne.
William Henry Schofield Payne was an actor, dancer and pantomimist, who created much of the stage business connected with the character Harlequin in 19th-century harlequinades. He was the father of the Victorian era pantomime clowns the Payne Brothers.
Henry Woodward was an English actor, among the most famous in his day for comedy roles.
Elizabeth Poole (1820–1906), was a British opera and concert soprano singer and actress of the 19th century.
George Mattocks (1735–1804) was a British stage actor and singer.
Thomas Mozeen was an English actor and dramatist.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Dawson, Nancy". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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