Page "Frances Abington" Paragraph 3

In 1756, on the recommendation of Samuel Foote, she became a member of the Drury Lane company, where she was overshadowed by Mrs Pritchard and Kitty Clive.

In 1759, after an unhappy marriage to her music teacher James Abington, a royal trumpeter, she is mentioned in the bills as " Mrs Abington ".

Her first success was in Ireland as Lady Townley ( in The Provok'd Husband by Vanbrugh and Cibber ), and it was only after five years, on the pressing invitation of David Garrick, that she returned to Drury Lane.

There she remained for eighteen years, being the first to play more than thirty important characters, notably Lady Teazle ( 1777 ).

In April 1772, when James Northcote saw her Miss Notable in Cibber's The Lady's Last Stake, he remarked to his brother " I never saw a part done so excellent in all my life, for in her acting she has all the simplicity of nature and not the least tincture of the theatrical ".