Jordan, MRS DOROTHEA

Jordan, MRS DOROTHEA, actress, was born near Waterford in 1762, the daughter of an actress and one Bland, whose father afterwards had the marriage annulled. She appeared first in Dublin, under the name of Miss Frances, as Phœbe in As You Like It, but soon became popular in romps and 'breeches' parts. Having had a quarrel with her manager, in 1782 she crossed the channel and obtained an engagement from Tate Wilkinson, of the York circuit, with whom she acted for three years. It was Wilkinson who joked her about 'crossing the Jordan,' and so suggested a new name to her; the 'Mrs' was added to secure a legacy—a theatrical wardrobe—left to her on this condition by an aunt who was a stickler for the proprieties. Mrs Jordan made her début at Drury Lane in The Country Girl in October 1785—just seven weeks before Mrs Clive died—and in a few days she had bewitched the town; the benches, formerly empty on the nights when Mrs Siddons was not playing, were now filled, and her joyous, apparently irrepressible laugh—her swindling laugh, a friend called it—captivated all hearts. In November she appeared as Viola in The Twelfth Night—a performance of which Lamb, long after, wrote with a kind of rapture; and he added, 'Her joyous parts (in which her memory now chiefly lives) in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones.' Nevertheless, for nearly thirty years, it was in the rôles of romps and boys that she mainly kept her hold on the public; in the part of a youthful and tender heroine she was less successful, as her wonderful voice lost its freshness and sweetness. In 1790 commenced her connection with the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., which endured until 1811. That she was faithful to him all this time, in spite of her youthful follies, there is no reason to doubt, and her considerable income was placed freely at his service. As some return he was warmly attached to her, and caused all who came to his house to treat her as his duchess. No satisfactory explanation has ever been given of the sudden breaking-off of their relations: Mrs Jordan testified to the Duke's generosity, but there is reason to believe she sacrificed herself in the settlements that followed. At any rate, after playing in London and in the provinces until 1814, she was compelled to retire to France for a debt of £2000—and this at a time when she was supposed to be in receipt of a pension of £1500 a year, besides her earnings as an actress. She lived in comparative poverty, though not in actual want, at St Cloud, and died there, friendless and alone, 3d July 1816. In 1831 King William raised her eldest son to the peerage, as Earl of Munster, and gave the other Fitz-Clarences the rank and precedence of the younger sons and daughters of a marquis. See the Life by Boaden (2 vols. 1831), and Temple Bar (October 1877).