MARY ANN DAVENPORT, ACTRESS

Mary Ann Harvey was born in Launceston in 1759, and was educated at Bath, where she was seized with a passion for the stage, and made her first appearance on the boards at Bath as Lappet in The Miser in 1779.

She remained at Bath two years, and during her residence there is thus described by an eye-witness of her performances: "Miss Harvey, about the years 1785 and 1786, was a lively, animated, bustling actress; arch, and of exuberant spirits. Her style was pointed and energetic; perhaps, indeed, she had less ease than was altogether the thing; but when she had to speak satirically or in irony—when, in fact, she had to convey one idea to the person on the stage with her and another to the audience, she was alone and inimitable; she did not carry you away with her so much as many young actresses that I have seen, but she always satisfied you more amply. Then her voice—what a voice hers was! Nay, what a voice she has still, though it has had a pretty fair exercise for the last half century and upwards. Then it had all the clearness for which it is even now distinguishable; and it had, besides, a witching softness of tone that knew no equal then, and that I have never heard exceeded since."

There was an espiègle charm about her; she was not exactly beautiful, but had a witchery of face and of manner that was unsurpassed by any of her fellow-actresses, who may have possessed more regularity of feature.

M^rs. Davenport,
in the Character of M^rs. Grundy

She was not baptized at Launceston, S. Mary Magdalen. Harvey was a common name at the time in the place; a Harvey was a builder, another a hatmaker, another a carrier. There were a Joseph Harvey and Catherine Penwarden married 27th January, 1756. These may have been her parents.

After leaving Bath, Miss Harvey joined the Exeter company, and there met and married Mr. Davenport, an actor of ordinary talent and low comedy.

After she had been married a short while, Mrs. Davenport went to Birmingham, where she remained a considerable time in hopes of obtaining an engagement. But disappointed in this expectation, she accepted an offer from Dublin, where Daly had opened his theatre, and there she made her debut as Rosalind in As You Like It, a character exactly suited to her, and in which she aroused great enthusiasm. Her graceful figure, her voice, now full of tenderness, then of arch humour, and her expressive face admirably suited the part. She moreover performed the part of Fulmer in the West Indian. The Authentic Memoirs of the Green Room for 1796 says: "Mrs. Davenport a tolerable substitute for Mrs. Webb, though not near so great.

The Davenports, tho' not of play'rs the first,
Are far from being in old folks the worst."

In 1794 she first performed at Covent Garden, as Mrs. Hardcastle, in She Stoops to Conquer, and at that theatre she continued without a rival till 1831, and occasionally filled up vacancies at the Haymarket. Mr. Davenport died in 1841; by him she had a son and a daughter. The former died in India, the latter in England.

Robson, in The Old Playgoer, says: "Brunton being the tall 'walking gentleman,' there is no one else worth mentioning but dear, dear Davenport, most truly not least though last. Lord! what a scream she would give if she knew I was about to show her up! I can just remember Mrs. Mattocks and Miss Pope.... But Mrs. Davenport was the McTab, the Malaprop, the Nurse whose bantling, 'stinted and cried aye,' with a villainous pain in her back, and a man Peter to carry her fan; the 'old mother Brulgruddery'; the Dame Ashfield with a 'damned bunch of keys,' who immortalized 'What will Missus Grundy say to that?' and would persuade a gentleman to put a ham under each arm and a turkey into his pocket; Jeremy Diddler's beautiful maid at the foot of the hill, who 'blushed like a red cabbage'; heigho! all visions—all gone.

"It was said of Mrs. Jordan that her laugh would have made the fortune of any actress if she had not had the wit to bring out one word to support it; but Mrs. Davenport's strong point was her scream. I wonder whether she ever indulged her husband with it in the course of a curtain lecture! Mercy on his nerves if she did! The appearance of her jolly red face was the presage of mirth, and her scream the signal for a roar of laughter. Good, cheerful soul! though an old woman forty years, she outlived nearly all her play-fellows, comfortably, happily, I hope."[28]

As an old lady her most celebrated personifications were the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, at which, in later times, she was hardly surpassed by Mrs. Stirling.

The writer of the memoir in the Georgian Æra says of her: "It has not been inaptly said of her, that in the vulgar loquacity of the would-be youthful Mrs. Hardcastle—the ugliness of the antiquated virgin, Miss Durable—the imbecility of four score in Mrs. Nicely—the sturdy brutality of Mrs. Brulgruddery—the warm-hearted cottager in Lovers' Vows—the attempted elegances of Mrs. Dowlas—the fiery humoured Dame Quickly—and the obtuse intellect of Deborah, she overcame all rivalry."

In the edition of the Authentic Memoirs of the Green Room for 1806 it is said, after a mention of Mr. Davenport: "Wife to the above, and of primary utility in a theatre as the representative of low, vulgar, and antiquated characters. In this line she has not her superior on the London stage. Her Mrs. Thorne in the Birthday, Lady Duberly in the Heir at Law, Dame Ashfield in Speed the Plough, Widow Warren in The Road to Ruin, Widow Cheshire in the Agreeable Surprise, Mrs. Pickle in the Spoiled Child, with a long and diversified list of parts of a similar description, deservedly rated high in the scale of histrionic excellence—and what greatly enhances her value, she is not less to be prized for the generality than for the intensive merit of her performances. Wide and extensive as is the range of parts which she sustains, there is not a single character in the whole list in which she does not acquit herself with distinguished talent and ability."

This bright and merry actress was run over by a dray on July 20th, 1841, and died in S. Bartholomew's Hospital on May 8th, 1843, after a lingering illness, at the age of eighty-four.