Sarah Siddons was a Welsh-born actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century.
Background
Siddons was born on July 5, 1755 in Brecon, Wales, the eldest daughter of Roger Kemble - manager of the touring theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians, which included most members of his family - and Sarah "Sally" Ward. Acting was only just becoming a respectable profession for a woman and initially her parents disapproved of her choice of profession.
Education
Through the special care of her mother in sending her to the schools in the towns where the company played, Sarah Siddons received a remarkably good education, although she was accustomed to make her appearance on the stage while still a child.
Career
In 1774, Siddons won her first success as Belvidera in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd. This brought her to the attention of David Garrick, who sent his deputy to see her as Calista in Nicholas Rowe's Fair Penitent, the result being that she was engaged to appear at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Owing to inexperience as well as other circumstances, her first appearances as Portia and in other parts were unfortunate, and when, after playing with success in Birmingham, she was about to return to town she received a note from the manager of Drury Lane stating that her services would not be required. Thus she was banished from Drury Lane as a worthless candidate for fame and fortune, and again in the beginning of 1777, she went on "the circuit" in the provinces.
After a very successful engagement at Bath, beginning in 1778 and lasting five years, Siddons again accepted an offer from Drury Lane, when her appearance as Isabella in Garrick's version of Southerne's Fatal Marriage, on the 10th of October 1782, was a triumph, only equalled in the history of the English stage by that of Garrick's first night at Drury Lane in 1741 and that of Edmund Kean's.
In her earlier years it was in scenes of a tender and melting character that she exercised the strongest sway over an audience; but in the performance of Lady Macbeth, in which she appeared on the 2nd of February 1785 for the first time in London, it was the grandeur of her exhibition of the more terrible passions as related to one awful purpose that held them spellbound. In Lady Macbeth Siddons found the highest and best scope for her gifts. It fitted her as no other character did, and as perhaps it will never fit another actress.
As Volumnia in Kemble's version of Coriolanus she also secured a triumph. Her last appearance was on the 9th of June 1819 as Lady Randolph in Home's Douglas, for the benefit of Mr and Mrs Charles Kemble.
Her most striking impersonations, besides the roles already mentioned, were those of Zara in Congreve's Mourning Bride, Constance in King John, Mrs Haller in The Stranger, and Elvira in Pizarro.
Achievements
Connections
In 1773, at the age of 18, Sarah married William Siddons, an actor. Her family life was less than fortunate; she gave birth to seven children but outlived five of them, and her marriage to William Siddons became strained and ended in an informal separation. Her daughter Maria died in 1798, and Sarah in 1803. Other children who lived to adulthood were: George, who went to India; Henry, who was an actor; and Cecilia, who married, in 1833, George Combe.