Miss Ford’s First Subscription Concert
will be to-morrow the 18th instant at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. As the Pit, Boxes, and Gallery are the same Price, the latter will be equally illuminated with wax-candles.
First Part. Overture of Pasquali: Song by Miss Ford, Voi Legete; Concerto Hautboy, Mr Simpson; Song, Miss Ford, Gentle Youth, etc.; Solo, Miss Ford, on the Viol di Gamba.
Second Part. Concerto Bassoon, Mr Miller; Song, Miss Ford, Sparge Amar; Solo Violin, Mr Pinto, Song, Return O God of Host, Full piece of French Horns.
Tickets at half-a-guinea each, to be had at the Theatre; at Mr Deard’s; at Mr Garden’s in St Paul’s Church Yard; and at Mr Walsh’s in Catherine-Street. No Persons to be admitted behind the Scenes.
To begin at Seven o’Clock.
No more tickets will be delivered than the house will contain.
The second concert took place on the 25th of March, when she is announced to take the “Vocal Parts” and play “a solo on the Viol di Gambo” as well as “a Concerto on the Guittar.”
Money being plentiful, the announcement of Ann Ford’s third concert on the 7th April is more lavishly displayed, the solo on the “Viol di Gambo” being, in particular, inserted in large type as a special attraction. For Monday, the 14th April, she requisitioned the services of three other artists. The programme for this concert appears in The Public Advertiser of Friday, 11th April 1760, in the following order:—
Miss Ford’s Fourth Subscription Concert
will be on Monday the 14th instant, at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.
The vocal Parts by Miss Ford, who will play a solo on the
Viol di Gambo
Overture
Non fai qual pena fia. Song. Concerti Traversa by Sen. G. Sweet Bird. Song. Solo, Viol di Gambo. Concerto Violoncello, Sen. Pasqualini. Hush ye pretty warbling Choir. Song. Solo Violin, Mr Pinto. Duetto, Caro Spiegar Voirei.
Lesson on the Guittar, and (by particular Desire) the 104th Psalm.
Full Piece
Tickets to be had.........
To begin at Seven o’Clock.
Her fifth and last concert took place on Tuesday, 22nd April, when, besides taking the “vocal parts,” she played a solo and accompanied herself in a song (“Oh! Liberty thou choicest treasure”) on the Viola di Gambo, also performing “a lesson on the guittar” and singing “a Hymn set by herself,” which she accompanied on the lute.
These five concerts completed the series announced and for the rest of that year Ann Ford abstained from further appearances on the concert platform. During the interval, she occupied herself in addressing a brilliant little pamphlet to her former lover, which was intended to contradict the scandalous imputations which were being noised abroad concerning her friendship with the married man. This letter was published in 1761, under the title of “A Letter from Miss F..d to a person of distinction.” The pathetic manner in which she chides his lordship for his attempt to overthrow her virtue, and her gentle despair at his sudden unfriendliness towards her, reads more like the attempt of a clever woman to raise public sympathy on her behalf rather than genuine dejection. The “person of distinction” whom she addressed replied to her in a somewhat derisive letter, in which he endeavours to reveal Miss Ford’s pique to arise from the fact, that he and his spouse did not support her subscription concerts handsomely. The publication of such letters certainly did neither party good, though from the point of view of literary excellence, Ann Ford surpassed her lordly lover.
Having become entirely dependent on herself through her direct opposition to her father’s wishes, Ann Ford again made another bid for public favour at the end of the following year. From the 24th to the 30th of October she was announced to sing “English airs accompanying herself on the musical glasses” daily in the large room, Cock’s Auction-room, Spring Gardens, and before the following year she published her “Instructions for playing on the Musical Glasses.” This was before the introduction of the “armonica” by Marianne Davies, so that the instrument employed by Ann Ford consisted simply of a series of glasses containing various quantities of water. This sort of art could have hardly been to her taste, and she very soon threw it up. In the following month she accompanied her friends, Lady Elizabeth Thicknesse and her husband, Philip Thicknesse, to Landguard Fort, of which the latter was Lieutenant-Governor. Shortly after their arrival Lady Thicknesse gave birth to a son, whom she lived to see only a few months old, as she died on the 28th March 1762. Circumstances thus threw the whole care of the child upon Ann Ford, and so devoted and sympathetic a foster-mother did she prove herself to be that, six months after his wife’s death, Philip Thicknesse made Ann Ford his (third) wife.
For some years after this event Ann Thicknesse lived a life of peaceful happiness, residing in the summer months at Felixstowe Cottage. This residence was the subject of an enthusiastic article in “The School of Fashion,” 1800, and Gainsborough’s sketch of it was published in The Gentleman’s Magazine (vol. ii. 1816). During the years of her married life, Mrs Thicknesse turned her attention to literature, and while residing in Bath, from 1778 to 1781, wrote her sketches of the “Lives and Writings of the Ladies of France,” which filled three volumes.
In 1792, an abrupt ending to this placid existence was caused by the sudden death of Philip Thicknesse at Boulogne, where Ann and her husband had made a temporary halt on their way to Italy. In spite of the danger entailed by English people in France at that time, Ann Thicknesse intrepidly remained in that country after her husband’s death, and paid for her temerity by arrest and confinement in a convent, where she remained for two years. With the execution of Robespierre and the liberation of all prisoners who could prove themselves capable of earning their own living, Ann Thicknesse easily gained her liberty and returned to England. In 1800 her novel, “The School of Fashion,” in which she introduced many well-known characters under fictitious names (she herself figuring under the guise of Euterpe) appeared.
The latter years of this brilliant woman’s life were spent with a friend who lived in the Edgware Road, and she died there, at the age of eighty, on the 20th January 1824. It is given to few to pass through such an eventful life as Ann Ford’s, and live to such ripe years. Beautiful, popular, a gifted linguist and musician, all these conspired to make her a prominent figure among the women of her day. Hone and Gainsborough painted her portrait, fashionable society raved about her and read her writings, and—she played upon a favourite viola da gamba “made in 1612, of exquisite workmanship and mellifluous tone.”