Charlotte+Tidswell

=Early Life = Charlotte Tidswell was born in 1760 to a well off family of an officer in which she was treated with splendor and even got sent off to France to receive a formal education. Little is known about her time in France, but it was cut short by the death of her father. This tragedy left her with a need to fend for herself as her expenditure incomes were cut off, and she needed to find a job to survive. Approximated to be about 8 years of age at this time, Miss Tidswell did not yet have any hard skills that she knew she could utilize. She turned instead to the stage, a place where she did not envision herself succeeding, or even having great talents, yet a place with which she stayed for many decades, and in which she became a well-worn name (Haslewood). Uncertain in her abilities Miss Tidswell settled for small guest and accompaniment roles, whatever the managers of the time were willing to give her, just enough to survive on her own. She stayed with a Dublin theater for a while, and was later briefly seen at Bristol, until her first mentioned in a London playbill which came out on January 24th 1783 when she was 23 years old and playing the part of Scentwell in The Busy Body. Her grand debut to the London stage is agreed to be her role as Leonora in The Mourning Bride, at the Drury Lane Theatre (Highfill).

 // Miss Tidswell as CORINNA, John Bannister as YOUN PHILPOT and William Parsons as OLD PHILPOT, artist unknown //

Theatre Career
Miss Tidswell stayed with the Drury Lane Theatre company for 39 years and dabbled in many roles. The company roamed many Theatres, and with them she found herself on such stages as the King’s Theatre and the Haymarket (Highfill). Often playing secondary and tertiary roles, Tidswell earned on average 2 pounds a week, scarcely rising above 3. As compensation she was given benefit tickets which she peddled out, and with her success in this side business, by 1792 she was sharing benefits (Haslewood). She briefly joined other troupes and went under Colman’s management as part of the Haymarket with some other folk from her Drury Lane group. In both theatres she reprised some regular roles such as Marquis’ Maid in Harlequin Peasant, Lucy Welldon in Oroonko, a Chambermaid in Heigho for a Husband! and Dororthy in All in Good Humour. In her later years she travelled out to other theatres and performed in such places as Brighton, Liverpool, and Manchester (Highfill). Miss Tidswell officially left the Drury Lane company in 1822 with a farewell benefit at which she read a farewell address after the end of their play, and was brought nearly to tears by her readings before the final drop of the curtain on this period of her life (Winston). A play directory called The London Stage lists every play and participant of a given theater year. The 1660-1800 Anthology part 5, responsible for the years 1792-1800 has a total of 306 results under the name of Miss Tidswell. Play names include such titles as The Haunted Tower, The Rivals, King Henry the Fifth, The Clandestine Marriage, and The Inconstant, in all of which she is listed as an actor. Some of these plays have a single day date indicating that this show played for one day only. It makes sense then that she was able to participate in over 300 plays in a span of only eight years (The London Stage). But regardless of their engagement length it becomes very clear that her whole time and life was devoted to the stage.

Some prominent roles that she played include- Lettice and Eliza in The Plain Dealer, Miss Frolick in The Absent Man, a Shepherdess in Cymon, Prudentia in A Duke and No Duke, Honoria in Love Makes a Man, Night in Amphitryon, Mrs Foresight in Love for Love, Gymp in Bon Ton, Penelope in The Natural Son, Colombine in The Cauldron, Diana and Jenny in The Humorist, Myrtilla and Trusty in The Provok'd Husband, Lady Clifford in The Earl of Warwick, Alithea in The Country Girl, Marmalet in All in the Wrong, Galatea in Philaster, Tiffany in The Heiress, Cephisa in The Distrest Mother, Lady Freelove in The Jealous Wife, Kitty in The Lyar, Madge in The Gentle Shepherd, Altea in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Florella in The Orphan, Mrs Fulmer in The West Indian, the Player Queen in Hamlet, Erixene in The Grecian Daughter, the Duchess of York in Richard III, Arante in King Lear, Bianca in Catherine and Petruchio, Charmion in All for Love, Toilet in The Jealous Wife, Lucetta in The Suspicious Husband, Parley in The Constant Couple, and Lettice and Lady Loverule in The Devil to Pay (Highfill).

A close reading of a handwritten manuscript play written specifically for the Drury Lane Theatre, showcases Miss Tidswell’s established role in this Troop. A manuscript of 60 pages, and one act, this play spans 5 scenes total. At the beginning a list of players is given, and Miss Tidswell is listed second, not in alphabetical order or even order of appearance. This play, The Ugly Club (no author listed) follows a group of socialites as they prepare to attend a monthly meeting of the titular Ugly Club, in which ugly people go to connect and find love. The main character, Miss Mary, a seemingly gorgeous woman, yet unlucky in love, decides to put on a mask and attend this club under the guise of being ugly in the hopes of finding someone to love her for her and not her beauty. Miss Tidswell plays her attendant, Lucy, and her role consists of trying to dissuade her from this plan, citing it as a lie to others, as well as insisting that she can find someone who will love her without deceit if she just opens her heart and lets it happen. Miss Mary ignores this advice and goes on to wacky misadventures and quips on social class and beauty for the rest of the play, uninterrupted by her attendants unsolicited advice (The Ugly Club). Reading the whole play shows that Miss Tidwell’s character Lucy is featured only in the first scene, yet her acknowledgement of players is listed as second most important. This shows her prominence in this theatre company, and the importance of her in the minds of the authors writing the plays for this theatre. Despite her mainly secondary and tertiary roles, both authors and critics paid her a lot of attention, and had a lot to say about her career.

Critical Reception
In a book entitled The Pin Basket to the Children of Thespis, Anthony Pasquin composed reviews, thoughts, and musings on several actors of this time. What stood out about this review was that every page-long composition was done in rhyme, lending his critiques a more playful and enjoyable air than that of most harsh write-ups of the time. In his entry on Miss Tidswell, Pasquin had many praising words to lend her. He called her “bold” and “worn with good breeding”. But he also had several lines to write about her return to youthful roles despite her gaining age. He seemed to be of the opinion that she no longer fit the age range of the roles that she continued to be given. He had several scathing lines about the state of her makeup and how she tried to cover her lines with it on stage. He seemed to think she was Fading Into old age and should accept this fact, and do so gracefully. This attack was followed with a tad kinder and gentle observation on the patterns of her career. Several lines were used to describe how outside of her characters, in real life, she is a very likable and well-mannered lady, this was pitted against the rude and uneducated character that she was often known to play. One line praises her ability to act well enough in these roles despite her opposing character in real life, yet the next line was “make her genteel and her usefulness ends” heavily implying but outside faking these boorish mannerisms, Miss Tidswell would not otherwise make a great dramatic actor. Overall the review flip-flops between positive and negative, but in the same playful manner that most reviews of this collection did in their whimsical rhyme scheme. Another commentary on Miss Tidswell’s life and career was given by Joseph Haslewood in his book The Secret History of the Green Room. He noted a similar pattern in her character portrayals of lowly attendance, servants, and other rude and uneducated characters. He hypothesized that this was a case of typecasting that stemmed from her early starts as a newcomer to the theater. Since she came to the stage without a proper education or training in theater, most of her first roles were small extras that had these same boorish mannerisms. From there the managers saw her succeeding in this type of role and continued to give such parts to her in the future, marking this as her specialty. Haslewood goes on to clarify that everyone who has met her in real life agrees that she is a great actor because she could not be any different in personality from the characters that she plays. She is anything but obnoxious and polite, her mannerisms in person are that of a highly educated and contained lady. Someone with class and dignity, proving that she really is acting every time she gets on that stage and reprises another boorish role.

Personal Life
It seems that a lot of recollections of her life are prefaced with sentences such as “according to Miss Tidswell’s accounts she…” (Haslewood)(Highfill), which is indicative of the times that did not allocate journalist to every small performer, and there were no online records to go and check every person's life history. A lot of the accounts therefore are reliant on the primary source, the actress herself, making it hard to discern which facts are indeed true and which were fibbed for the stories. This is probably true of many records of the time, as events would lack any on the spot recording, and would require eye testimony and verbal accounts in order to be logged anywhere for future access. <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Her name is also briefly mentioned in the biographies of many other prominent actors of the time. Those accounts are also credited to be verbal recollections and often described to be approximate guesses as to her life. For example a popular subject of speculation is her involvement with a highly popular actor named Edmund Kean. Kean is known to have grown into a notorious Shakespearean stage actor. He was often in the Limelight due to his involved personal life as well as his great acting ability. All accounts of his involvement with Miss Tidswell put them to have been very close and for her to have a very motherly relationship with the boy. Some sources claimed that she might have in secret been his mother, or Aunt (Highfill) while others speculated that she had just found a liking for the boy and taken him under her wing without any blood relation (Haslewood). But these sources all agree that she played a role in giving him his first acting lessons thereby setting him on the path to become the renowned stage man that he is known for today. They were very close to the point that as a youth when he worked alongside her for Drury Lane Theatre he wore a collar around his neck that was engraved “Bring this Boy to Miss Tidswell” and her address listed below that (Winston). It seems also that his notoriety is what’s responsible for most accoun ts of Miss Tidswell’s life, as his biographies serve as record keepers for most of the known personal life facts about her (Haslewood).

//Edmund Kean// <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Other passing mentions of her in the biographies of actors often list them as going to her house for parties or dinners. From this information it seems that in the later years of her life Miss Tidswell became a socialite, and often gathered the other players of her craft at her household where many elite dinners and conversations were held in a coffee house-like manner. Other mentions show her hosting benefits such as one with Phillimore and Barnes on the 4th of June 1789, putting her in high standards of the society, and showing that she gave back and hosted many things for which she was prominently remembered in the lives of others (Highfill). <span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">It is unclear if Miss Tidswell ever married or had children beyond the rumoured speculations of her involvement with Edmund Kean’s father, and him being her child, though most sources agree this is likely false (Highfill). From the mentions of her hosting luncheons and them being attributed to her name it would seem that she never took a husband and remained the sole host of her house. Little other facts about her personal life and times can be found, and even her date of death is described as “according to Giles Play- fair’s Kean” which lists her death as the 3rd of September 1836, at the age of 86 (Highfill).

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Bibliography

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Haslewood, Joseph. The Secret History of the Green-Room: Containing Authentic and Entertaining Memoirs of the Actors and Actresses in the Three Theatres Royal pg.174-176. A new ed., ed., J. Owen, 1795.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Highfill, Philip H, et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Volume 15, Tibbett to M. West /, Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. WorldCat.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Pasquin, Anthony. The Pin-Basket to the Children of Thespis. : With Notes Historical, Critical, and Biographical. by John Williams, Whose Public Appellation Is Anthony Pasquin. Pg.186-188. Printed for H.D. Symonds, Paternoster-Row, 1797.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The London Stage, 1660-1800. Part 5: 1776-1800. Volume 3: 1792-1800.: Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, Eighteenth Century Drama, http://www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/Documents/Details/BL_OAH_1_The_London_Stage_p5v3

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The Ugly Club!.: Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, Eighteenth Century Drama, http://www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/Documents/Details/HL_LA_mssLA1217.

<span style="font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Winston, James, et al. Drury Lane Journal : Selections from James Winston's Diaries, 1819-1827. Society for Theatre Research, 1974.