Mary Ann Vincent was born on September 18, 1818, in Portsmouth, England. She was the daughter of an attache of the Royal Navy named John Farlow, who died when she was only two years old.
After the death of her mother two years later, she was brought up by her grandmother.
Acquaintance with members of a theatrical troupe aroused her interest in the stage at an early age, and in April 1835, Vincent made her debut at a theatre in Cowes, Isle of Wight, as a chambermaid in The Review, or the Wags of Windsor. Her second role was a much more important one, that of Volante in John Tobin's then popular comedy, The Honeymoon. She remained at the theatre in Cowes until the end of the season.
After her marriage to James R. Vincent throughout her entire career, she was known both on and off the stage as Mrs. J. R. Vincent. After acting here and there in the provincial theatres of Great Britain, she and her husband accepted an engagement at the National Theatre in Boston, arriving in that city on November 7, 1846, and making their first appearance on November 11 in Popping the Question, as Miss Biffin and Mr. Primrose. Mrs. Vincent remained at the National Theatre for two years after the death of her husband on June 11, 1850.
Going to the Boston Museum on May 10, 1852, as Mrs. Pontifex in Naval Engagements, she was uninterruptedly, with the exception of the season of 1861-62, a member of its stock company for more than thirty-five years. A list of the characters she acted there is virtually the repertory of that theatre from season to season. She became its leading comedienne, and later its leading old lady, playing a range of parts as varied as those of Nancy Sikes in Oliver Twist, Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Mrs. Candour in The School for Scandal, Maria in Twelfth Night, Goneril in King Lear, and Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, as well as many parts in the ephemeral plays of the day.
The total number of these characters acted by her was well over four hundred, and the number of her performances on the stage of the Boston Museum extends far into the thousands. On Thursday, September 1, 1887, she suffered a stroke of apoplexy at her home after having acted Mrs. Keziah Beekman in The Dominie's Daughter the previous evening and died early Sunday morning. She was buried from St. Paul's Church, Boston, of which she was a communicant, and her remains were interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. In the eyes of Boston Mrs.
Vincent was more than an actress. Her name was a household word, even among the many who never went to a theatre. With William Warren, the leading comedian of the Boston Museum for many years, she was a Boston institution. An associate recalls "the jolly, chubby, little figure, the bobbing curls, the inimitable, tripping walk, and the gasping pleasant voice, all suggestive of mirth and merriment".
She was hospitable and charitable, fond of animals, and but for the solicitude of her friends, she would have spent almost every cent she earned in helping the poor and friendless. Her fiftieth year on the stage was commemorated at the Museum on April 25, 1885, with afternoon and evening performances in which she appeared as Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer and as Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals.
In August 1835, Vincent was married to James R. Vincent, an actor nine years her senior. After the death of her first husband, she married in 1854 to John Wilson, an actor. Their marriage was unhappy, and after a separation, it ended in divorce twelve years later.
