Mary Anne Costello

GEDCOM Note

DAILY TELEGRAPH - SATURDAY 16th APRIL 1927

A WOMAN OF SPIRIT

GEORGE CANNING'S MOTHER

By F.R Gale

This year is the centenary of the death of George Canning and also his mother Mary Ann Hunn, one of those women who have given great sons to their country, and of whom the comparative little that is known makes one want to know more. Of her youth she herself wrote to a correspondent: “The first twenty years of my life was almost an uninterrupted scene of suffering”.

Daughter of Jordan Costello, a member of an ancient and honourable Irish family, and granddaughter of Colonel (Melchior) Guy Dickens who figures in Carlyle's “Frederick the Great” but a penniless beauty, she married in 1768 George Canning, pere, a disinherited young barrister who forsook the study of Law for literature. The writer of these notes purchased not long since, for a couple of shillings off a bookstall in the Farringdon Road, a copy of a ? volume containing his “poems” “by George Canning of the Middle Temple” published in 1767 together with his “Translation of Anti-Lucretius” published the previous year. “To her Majesty Queen Charlotte” (ran the author's dedication) “this translation of a poem calculated to promote the cause of religion and virtue, by overturning the pillars of morality and atheism, is most humbly inscribed by her Majesty's most dutiful and loyal servant” and then the printers have left a space which is autographed in a large round hand” G. Canning”. The introductory address to the “Printers” is similarly signed. The author died in 1771 not quite three years after his marriage with Mary Ann Costello and just a year after the birth of a future Prime Minister.

ON THE STAGE With his death perished the small annuity he received from his family and Mrs Canning, at the age of 23 was left destitute. Being a woman of spirit she bestirred herself, ……….was brought to bear, and she was enabled to make a first appearance on the stage at Drury Lane, on Nov. 6 1773 in the leading character of Nicholas Bowe's Jane Shore. Garrick resuming for the occasion his part of Hastings. A notice in the same day's “Public Advertiser” announced that the part of Jane Shore would be taken “by a Gentlewoman (being her first appearance on any stage)” with Reddish as ……, M …. Young as Alicia and as already mentioned Garrick as Hastings. A paragraph in that following Monday's issue stated the “the gentlewoman who made her first appearance upon any stage in the character of Jane Shore on Saturday last was received with great applause and would perform it (for a second time) this evening” Mrs Canning's name appeared in subsequent bills, including that of her benefit, which took place on April 26 1774, when she appeared for the first time as Mrs. Beverley in “The Gamester”

Tickets and places were to be had, according to the bill “of Mrs Canning in Great Queen-street Lincoln's Inn-fields, and at the theatre” But it was hardly to be expected that a novice, even with her beauty, should be able to hold her own with actresses like Mrs. Abingdon and Mrs. Barry, and Mrs Canning was soon filling minor parts. In 1775 she was playing Julia in “The Rivals” at Bristol, under the management of Samuel Reddish of Drury Lane, tragedian and drunkard whom she was foolish enough to marry, and who died in 1785.

Mrs. Hunn's connection with the stage was the subject of many lampoons on the part of her son's political adversaries. “ Peter Pindar” sneered at “Mother Hun (sic) and her daughters from the country theatrical barns” and complained that “with sinecures of large amount, squeezed from the vitals of the nation, this modest and generous youth could not afford to yield his poor mother Mistress Hunn, alias Mistress Reddish alias Mistress Canning, a pittance. No! the kingdom must be saddled with five hundred pounds a year for her support”. But, as Bell says in his “Life of Canning” (!846) the transfer of the pension to which he was entitled, when retired from the office of Under-Secretary of State, from a “youth” of 31 was clearly in favour of the public.

John Bernard, under whose management she played for sixteen years and who was present at her first appearance at Drury Lane, when according to him, she “put forth claims to the approbation of the critical” has put it on record that “as an actress the efforts of Mrs Hunn were more characterised by judgment than 'genius' but Nature had gifted her in several respects to sustain the matrons” Bernard was writing of a period nearly twenty years after her Drury Lane debut. She had had a dozen children - two by George Canning (the elder, a girl, did not survive) five by Samuel Reddish, and five by her third husband, Richard Hunn, whom she met at Plymouth, where she appears to have been quite a favourite. Richard Hunn, a silk mercer at Plymouth, was the son of Alderman Samuel Hunn, master cooper of his Majesty's Victualling Office there. He failed in business and then as an actor, and before long left his wife for the third time a widow. It was her son by this marriage, Captain Frederick Hunn, R.N. who commanded Admiral Sir Harry Keppel's first ship, the Tweed, when she went to sea at the beginning of 1824. Captain Hunn's half brother, George Canning, early in his political career married Joan, daughter and co-heiress of Major General John Scott, and sister of the Marchioness of Titchfield, afterwards Duchess of Portland. The day after Canning's funeral she was created a Viscountess. Their daughter Harriet married in 1825 the fourteenth Earl and first Marquis of Clanricarde.

RETIREMENT AT BATH Mrs. Hunn, who pre-deceased Canning by only five months, spent the last twenty years of her life in retirement at Bath. Stratford Canning who accompanied his cousin to see her there in 1816, says she was “A handsome old lady” of commanding presence and much apparent energy answering to what he told me namely, that I should see a person of high spirits and spirit also”. Her daughter-in-law, Mrs Frances Emma Hunn, the wife of Captain Frederick Hunn described her as “a woman not to be offended with impunity; her disposition and feelings are of a violent character” This was perhaps, altogether a unprejudiced description, for Mrs. Hunn junior went on, “Neither I nor my excellent husband stand high in her favour. Mr. Canning is her favourite child, all others (as well they may) sink in the shade when compared to him” Mrs. Hunn retained traces of the beauty of her youth to the last. The portrait here reproduced, which is the first to be published, is from a painting in the possession of one of her descendents.

Canning was a most devoted son. He wrote to his mother regularly every week and visited her as often as possible. Writing from Bath to his friend Frere on Jan. 8. 1825 (while his wife and daughter were in Paris on a visit to the Grevilles), Canning said that Lord and Lady Liverpool were settled in a house in Gay Street - “that house with the red door just opposite the end of South Street in which I lodge “I have two younkers of secretaries with me…. We dine regularly at Liverpool's. In the evening, I send my younkers to the play or ball and I sit and drink tea with my mother, and then about half ten home to bed. Ten days of this regular …. ought to set me up for the year.

Two years later Mrs. Hunn's health was failing. She did not live to see her son Prime Minister. In a letter dated Cosham, March 30 1827 (the day of her death), Mrs Hunn's junior wrote: “The last four months of my time have been employed in attending the sick bed of Captain Hunn's mother whose death is now hourly expected. It was my wish to have remained with her till all was over, but the house filled so rapidly with relatives that I found my attendance unnecessary ad useless, because the poor old lady knew not one nurse from another” Canning was prevented by a severe rheumatic attack from journeying to Bath for his mother's funeral. Acknowledging a letter from Dr. J Turner. of Bath, who had “the painfull task to announce to you that what we have been so long apprehensive of has taken place this morning.” Canning bemoaned his helpless state. “I wrote to Bath on Saturday” he said, “in a tone calculated to prevent alarm if the letters had met the maternal eyes which, alas! were closed before its arrival”.

Mary Ann Costello was born on 10 March 1746 at Mayo, Ireland. She claimed to be 18 in 1768, 24 in April 1771, and aged 80 or 78 at her death on March 10 1827 according to different biographers of her son George. Highfill states that most accounts relate that Mary Anne was a penniless if beautiful waif, a legend which H W Temperley denies in his Life of Canning (1905), claiming that reports of her low birth were simply slanders concocted by her son's political enemies and that, in point of fact, "her pedigree extended to the conquest and included not only early Irish kings, but, what is of more importance, many late Irish peers." Temperley offers no detailed pedigrees, bur F R Gale, in Notes and Queries (1929), states that Mary Anne was the daughter of Jordan Costello, whose father was descended from a patrician Irish family and whose mother was a daughter of Colonel Melchior Guydickens,scion of an aristocratic Worcestershire family. The assertion by Temperley, however - that Mary Anne was "a woman of spotless virtue" - can hardly be supported by what is known of her life and it illustrates that biographers' deplorable zeal for improving the maternal background of his illustrious subject. De Breffney stated that she described her early years as "an almost uninterrupted scene of suffering".. She was the daughter of Jordan Costello and Daughter Guy Dickens. Mary Ann Costello married George Canning, son of Stratford Canning and Letitia Newburgh, on 21 May 1768 or April 1768 at St Mary, St Marylebone, Westminster. Mary Ann Costello of Wigmore St & George Canning of the Middle Temple. Highfill states that by the time Mary Anne married the Irish George Canning, he had already earned a reputation for having an ardent attachment to civil and religious liberty. These extreme liberal views and his liaison with with a young girl prior to his association with Mary Anne, had caused his father, Stratford Canning of Garvagh, to turn him off with a allowance of £150 a year. William Jerdan in "Men I have known" (via Google Books), states: I must, however, set out with a correction of my memoir from a relative of the family, who adds that Canning's chivalrous spirit might well belong to his blood as his descent was from two of the noblest septs in Ireland, the Costellos and the Frenches, from Old Castile ! 'It is stated that the accomplished mother of George Canning was ' of inferior station.' This is so far from being the case, that the young lady was residing with her uncle, General Guydickens, who, on his return from a mission of honour from his sovereign to the court of Russia, had adopted his nioce, Mary Ann Costello, as his heiress. It was his mansion in South Audley Street she quitted to become Mrs. Canning. It was from his carriage she was alighting at Kensington Gardens (whither she daily accompanied the General and his maiden sister, her aunt, Miss Guydickens), when George Canning, then a student at Temple Bar, first saw the young Irish beauty who was to be the mother of one of England's best-loved statesmen. The addresses of the young representative of the Canning squirearchy were sternly repelled by General Guydickens, who had higher views for the niece he subsequently disinherited for what, in his eyes, was a meaalliance. It is at the same time historically true that the Canning family unrelentingly resented the marriage on their side, and thus this true Romeo and Juliet were exposed to a cross fire of persecution from the Capulets and Montagues." Well, we may say with the poet, " it matters not ; " but Canning was aware of the miserable little envy which would endeavour to disparage him as lowly born. When George Croly published his comedy of " Pride shall have a Fall," he asked me to get Mr. Canning's consent to its being dedicated to him. I made the request without circumlocution, as I said and did everything I had to say or do in the same quarter, frankly and straightforward (for such was his desire), and he at once laughingly complied with the application, with the remark, " It is an odd title. I shall, no doubt, have it good-naturedly fitted to myself." I remember on another occasion some one gave a vivid account of a pitiable scene just witnessed in the Green Park. Mary was an actress from 1773. After being widowed she turned to the stage. Highfill suggests that it was "no doubt through the influence of the eccentric actor Samuel Reddish, with whom she began to live soon after the death of her husband. Billed only as "A Gentlewoman," she made her first appearance "on any stage" in the title part of Jane Shore with Garrick as hasings, at Drury Lane on 6 November in 1773. The prompter Hopkins described her and her reception in his diary: "A small mean figure very little power (very So, So) great applause." The Town and Country magazine was compelled to report that "a continued monotony of voice and very little expression in her countenance, are great impediments to her shing at present in the character of Jane Shore." A bit more promise was discerned by the reviewer in the Covent Garden magazine. He found that she "has great sensibility, is pleasing in her figure, and agreeable in her contenance. But she has a bad voice, an unfortunate sameness of tone, and wants a power to vary her features, as well as spirit in her delivery, [but] ... is not devoid of the grand theatrical requisites, let us therefore candidly hope she will improve those abilities she evidently possesses, and by study and attention to the duties of her new professions, acquire those excellences in which she is now found wanting." Later in the season she played "Perdita" in Florizel & Perdita on 12 April 1774, then as Mrs Beverley in The Gamester with Reddish; was unsuccessful so relegated to minor roles & departed for provinces playing Julia in "The Rivals" in Bristol in 1775 & was calling herself Mrs Reddish. An unhappy affair but it kept her theatrical career going. See Highfill for a more detailed list of her performances. He mentions "Reddish's obsession for casting his "wife" in roles which she manifestly was incapable of playing caused a rowdy receiption for her first appearance of the season as Elizabeth to Reddish's Richard II. Forewarned, Reddish had tried to pack the house, but the hissing won out, and the manager was reprimanded by the press: Where we find private affection operating against public satisfaction, and connubial love against the desire of pleasing, we cannot but lament the misfortune of a person who, blinded by tenderness, can suffer the dictates of judgement to be superseded by the call of ambition ... I would remind Mr Reddish that an Herione is full as necessary on the stage as the Hero. ... About this time [1777] Mary Anne went to play at Dublin with Reddish, but the Canning family boycotted her benefit and she drew only a small crowd. As Mrs Reddish, she acted at Cork in the summer of 1777 and at Liverpool form June through 19 October 1778 at a salary of £1/11/6 per week. At one time she toured with Whitlock's company in Staffordshire and the Midlands and thw Wilkinson at Hull. In 1773 she was mentioned in The Gentleman's magazine as Miss Costello at Hot Wells, Bristol. Doran states that [Reddish's] wife who was a favourite in the provinces, was ultimately hissed from the stage of Old Drury. Mary Ann Costello married Richard Hunn, son of Samuel Hunn and Ann Triscott, on 11 February 1783 at St Paul's, Exeter, Devon. She separated from Hunn because of "his disgusting conduct". She gave a prayer book to Samuel Reddish on 12 February 1800 at Portsmouth, Hampshire. This was in the possession of John Ashby Hooper and is signed "the last gift of an affectionate mother, to S Reddish, may he be virtuous and happy, M A Hunn, Portsmouth 12 Feb 1800" presumably given on his departure for Barbados to be Comptroller of Customs at Bridgetown. Mary Ann Costello lived at 11 Tufton Street, Soho, Westminster, Middlesex, February 1803. The actor George Frederick Cooke noted in his journal visits to Mrs Hunn at 11 Tufton St, Westminster in Feb 1803. On the 5th February he noted that he had met Mr & Mrs Thompson, whom he incorrectly identified as Mrs Hunn's eldest "daughter, by the late Mr Reddish." Mary died on 10 March 1827 at 35 Henrietta Street, Bath, Somerset, aged 81. Her son George in 1809 bequeathed all his personalty to his wife, desiring her to secure to his mother an annuity of 300 pounds for her life, however she died five months before him. The Dictionary of National Biography described her as "A young lady of great beauty but without any fortune". She was paid £40 p.a. by her father-in-law to stay in England. Her uncle was a gentleman usher, he approached Queen Charlotte with a request for an introduction to Garrick & through him was able to start a theatrical career. Canning seems to have kept regularly in touch with his mother by letter and he often visited her. Although he did not recognize the Reddish children as his relations, apparently he provided them with support from time to time. In 1802 Mary Ann was "threatening to live in London near son George". In 1804 Mary Ann saw her Canning grand-children. In 1805 she was in London. Highfill states "She no doubt caused some embarrassment to her son's political ambitions, and his enemies often sought to discredit him by reference to her stage career: Lord Grey once demanded with mock indignation whether "the actress's son" was really to become Prime Minister of England. "Peter Pindar" wrote sneering verses about "Mother Hunn and her daughters from the country theatrical barns." Mrs Hunn maintained her interest in the theatre throughout 26 years of retirement. Samuel Clement Hall (1800-1889) whose father knew Mrs Hunn well, remembered her as "Handsome and attractive in old age, chatty, agreeable, fond of going back to remembrances of people she had known, and greatly enjoying a rubber of whist.". See:The Offspring of Fancy, the author identified. By Julian Crowe at http://www.chawtonhouse.org/library/novels/files/offspring_of_fancy...

Mary Ann Canning was a struggling Irish actress in London. She had, at the outset, some powerful friends and was given a helping hand by Garrick himself, who took her as his leading lady in a production of Jane Shore at Drury Lane in 1773. The reviews were lukewarm, but Garrick persevered with her, and the leading actor Samuel Reddish undertook to coach her. The fact was that Mary Ann had taken to the stage only as a last resort to earn a living after being left a penniless widow with two young sons. She was a beautiful and intelligent woman, but whether or not she had sufficient talent ever to have made a living on the London stage is not clear. She was not brilliant enough to counteract the scandals that grew up around her association with Reddish, a notorious womaniser. Garrick, for one reason or another, did not renew her contract. Under Reddish’s protection she found work in the west country, and Sheridan, when he took over from Garrick, was persuaded to give her another chance at Drury Lane, offering her the second female role in a translation of Voltaire’s Semiramis. This was early in 1777, by which time she was living with Reddish as his wife. She had lost her two Canning sons (one was dead and the other, George the future statesman, had been taken over by her husband’s family), and had two children by Reddish. On the first night of Semiramis she was determinedly hissed by an organized claque. Despite support from the other actors and the play’s translator, Sheridan could not or would not keep her on, and the part was taken over by the prompter’s daughter, leading Mary Ann to suspect that the prompter had been in a plot against her. The shock of this event, and the death of her young baby shortly afterwards, led Mary Ann to abandon for the moment her theatrical ambitions. Her health was badly affected and she looked around for another way of earning her living. This was how she came to try her hand at writing a novel. Between March 1777 when her baby died, and May when she accompanied Reddish to Ireland, a period of five weeks, she completed the letters which made up two little volumes. This account of events is contained in Mary Ann’s memoirs, written This account of events is contained in Mary Ann’s memoirs, written in a long (60,000 words) letter to her son George at a crisis in their relationship which arose in 1803, a quarter of a century later.1 Although it is written with a purpose and contains much special pleading, her life-story given in the letter generally appears to be accurate wherever it can be compared with independent evidence. She doesn’t mention the title of her novel. When she set out for Ireland she left the work in the hands of Nichols, publisher of the parliamentary debates, and Bew of Paternoster Row, who had agreed between them to print 750 copies. While they were in Cork Reddish fell out with the printer of his play-bills, and Mary Ann went to smooth the matter over. She must have struck a rapport with the printer, William Flyn, who was also a book-seller and publisher of the Cork newspaper, The Hibernian Chronicle, and an important figure in Cork society. Mary Ann had a knack of hitting it off with intelligent and enterprising men, usually to her disadvantage, but in this case it did her good. Flyn agreed to take fifty copies of her novel, which she accordingly despatched to him from London the following year. His payment of £7.10.0 arrived in the autumn, at a time when her fortunes had declined to a new low point. Reddish, never a stable character, had gone quite mad and lost new his job at Covent Garden, so he, Mary Ann and their three surviving children had no means of support. A search of library catalogues turns one title that fits the known facts about Mary Ann’s novel, the date, publisher and form. This is The Offspring of Fancy, of which two copies at least have survived, one in the library of Rice University, Houston, and the other at the Chawton House Library, University of Southampton. That this is the only candidate would not in itself be strong evidence, since there is no reason to assume that any copies of Mary Ann’s work must have survived. There are in the plot of The Offspring of Fancy no events which are so close to the known facts of Mary Ann’s life that they compel us to identify her as the author. Opinions expressed by the letter writers, and even some turns of phrase, echo some to be found in Mary Ann’s memoir, but again these are not so unusual as to be conclusive. In writing about her novel Mary Ann twice uses the word fancy which could be a hint which she expected her son to recognise, but equally it could be an insignificant coincidence. It is Flyn who provides the most telling evidence. He used his newspaper to advertise his other business interests, such as his lottery agency and his stock of the latest books. Week after week the same titles appear, with every so often a newcomer to the list. Novels are in a minority amongst his titles. Clearly, if he had fifty copies of a new novel by an anonymous lady to sell he would need to advertise them quite vigorously, and sure enough on 5 October 1778 he announced, in a separate notice apart from his routine list, ‘Just imported and now selling for the author … a few sets of the London edition of a new Novel in letters called The Offspring of Fancy, written by an Irish lady’.... Mary Ann Costello married Richard Hunn, son of Samuel Hunn, on 11 February 1783 at St Paul's, Exeter, Devon. She separated from Hunn because of "his disgusting conduct." About 1791 there were letters from George Canning trying to induce his mother to leave the stage (which she did after her marriage to Hunn was breaking up) She invented & sold an eye ointment with little success.. Mary Ann Costello lived at Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England, in January 1798. In May 1799 - a warrant payable to Mary Ann (his mother) from George's pension (£500 p.a.) According to The Dictionary of National Biography, Mrs Hunn retired from the stage in 1801, when her famous son George, now an undersecretary, was said to have caused a pension of £500 a year to be settled on her. But in his Life of Canning Temperley claimed the pension was a fable, or at least was "unconfirmed by the pension list.". She gave a prayer book to Samuel Reddish on 12 February 1800 at Portsmouth, Hampshire. A bible in the possession of John Ashby Hooper is signed "the last gift of an affectionate mother, to S Reddish, may he be virtuous and happy, M A Hunn, Portsmouth 12 Feb 1800" presumably given on his departure for Barbados to be Comptroller of Customs at Bridgetown. Mary Ann Costello lived at 11 Tufton Street, Soho, Westminster, Middlesex, in February 1803. The actor George Frederick Cooke noted in his journal visits to Mrs Hunn at 11 Tufton St, Westminster in Feb 1803. On the 5th February he noted that he had met Mr & Mrs Thompson, whom he incorrectly identified as Mrs Hunn's eldest "daughter, by the late Mr Reddish". She lived at Winchester, Hampshire, in 1806. Bell states that she "resided at Winchester where she had some cousins in an inferior walk of life". She lived at Bath, Somerset, from 1807 to 1827. In 1807 she settled at Bath. When George Canning returned from Lisbon in 1816, Stratford Canning met him on the road and accompanied him to Bath, where his mother was living. He wrote at the time "I found a handsome old lady of commanding presence and much apparent energy answering to what he had told me, namely, that I should see a person of high spirits and spirit also". We have an envelope from George Canning at Bath Oct 6th 1821, to Mrs Colthurst, Avoca Cottage, ......high, Ireland. Mary died on 10 March 1827 at 35 Henrietta Street, Bath, Somerset. Her son George in 1809 bequeathed all his personalty to his wife, desiring her to secure to his mother an annuity of 300 pounds for her life, however she died five months before him. The Dictionary of National Biography described her as "A young lady of great beauty but without any fortune". She was paid £40 p.a. by her father-in-law to stay in England. Her uncle was a gentleman usher, he approached Queen Charlotte with a request for an introduction to Garrick & through him was able to start a theatrical career. Canning seems to have kept regularly in touch with his mother by letter and he often visited her. Although he did not recognize the Reddish children as his relations, apparently he provided them with support from time to time. In 1802 Mary Ann was "threatening to live in London near son George". In 1804 Mary Ann saw her Canning grand-children. In 1805 she was in London. Highfill states "She no doubt caused some embarrassment to her son's political ambitions, and his enemies often sought to discredit him by reference to her stage career: Lord Grey once demanded with mock indignation whether "the actress's son" was really to become Prime Minister of England. "Peter Pindar" wrote sneering verses about "Mother Hunn and her daughters from the country theatrical barns." Mrs Hunn maintained her interest in the theatre throughout 26 years of retirement. Samuel Clement Hall (1800-1889) whose father knew Mrs Hunn well, remembered her as "Handsome and attractive in old age, chatty, agreeable, fond of going back to remembrances of people she had known, and greatly enjoying a rubber of whist.".

The Offspring of Fancy«/i», the author identified By Julian Crowe «/b»«i» The Offspring of Fancy«/i» , by 'A Lady', was published in 1778 by Bew of Paternoster Row. It is an epistolary novel in two volumes, telling several interlinked stories. The main correspondents are two sisters, Charlotte Bellas rustic and conventionally virtuous, and Marianne Clement metropolitan, impulsive, intelligent and emotional. Their letters tell of their own marriages and family life, and the dramas of their friends, in particular Charlotte's neighbours, the Masons. The second half of the novel concentrates on the tribulations of Marianne's husband's niece, Amelia. The episodes are from the common stock of marital misunderstanding, jealousy, parental tyranny, forced and imprudent marriages, elopements, duels and mysterious identities. The writing is clear and flowing, and the characters of the various letter-writers are well differentiated. None of the story-lines is worked out in great detail or at length, and there is no sense of resolution at the end. The novel concludes abruptly with Amelia safe in a German convent, and Marianne reflecting on the tumults affecting the wider family of the nation whose American branch was in revolt against its kind father the King. Mary Ann Canning was a struggling Irish actress in London. She had, at the outset, some powerful friends and was given a helping hand by Garrick himself, who took her as his leading lady in a production of «i» Jane Shore «/i» at Drury Lane in 1773. The reviews were lukewarm, but Garrick persevered with her, and the leading actor Samuel Reddish undertook to coach her. The fact was that Mary Ann had taken to the stage only as a last resort to earn a living after being left a penniless widow with two young sons. She was a beautiful and intelligent woman, but whether or not she had sufficient talent ever to have made a living on the London stage is not clear. She was not brilliant enough to counteract the scandals that grew up around her association with Reddish, a notorious womaniser. Garrick, for one reason or another, did not renew her contract. Under Reddish's protection she found work in the west country, and Sheridan, when he took over from Garrick, was persuaded to give her another chance at Drury Lane, offering her the second female role in a translation of Voltaire's «i» Semiramis«/i» . This was early in 1777, by which time she was living with Reddish as his wife. She had lost her two Canning sons (one was dead and the other, George the future statesman, had been taken over by her husband's family), and had two children by Reddish. On the first night of «i» Semiramis «/i» she was determinedly hissed by an organized claque. Despite support from the other actors and the play's translator, Sheridan could not or would not keep her on, and the part was taken over by the prompter's daughter, leading Mary Ann to suspect that the prompter had been in a plot against her. The shock of this event, and the death of her young baby shortly afterwards, led Mary Ann to abandon for the moment her theatrical ambitions. Her health was badly affected and she looked around for another way of earning her living. This was how she came to try her hand at writing a novel. Between March 1777 when her baby died, and May when she accompanied Reddish to Ireland, a period of five weeks, she completed the letters which made up two little volumes. This account of events is contained in Mary Ann's memoirs, written in a long (60,000 words) letter to her son George at a crisis in their relationship which arose in 1803, a quarter of a century later.1 Although it is written with a purpose and contains much special pleading, her life-story given in the letter generally appears to be accurate wherever it can be compared with independent evidence. She doesn't mention the title of her novel. When she set out for Ireland she left the work in the hands of Nichols, publisher of the parliamentary debates, and Bew of Paternoster Row, who had agreed between them to print 750 copies. While they were in Cork Reddish fell out with the printer of his play-bills, and Mary Ann went to smooth the matter over. She must have struck a rapport with the printer, William Flyn, who was also a book-seller and publisher of the Cork newspaper, «i» The «/i»1 George Canning Family Papers, in the Harewood Family and Estate Archive, West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds. 2 «i»Hibernian Chronicle«/i» , and an important figure in Cork society. Mary Ann had a knack of hitting it off with intelligent and enterprising men, usually to her disadvantage, but in this case it did her good. Flyn agreed to take fifty copies of her novel, which she accordingly despatched to him from London the following year. His payment of £7.10.0 arrived in the autumn, at a time when her fortunes had declined to a new low point. Reddish, never a stable character, had gone quite mad and lost new his job at Covent Garden, so he, Mary Ann and their three surviving children had no means of support. A search of library catalogues turns up one title that fits the known facts about Mary Ann's novel, the date, publisher and form. This is «i» The Offspring of Fancy«/i» , of which two copies at least have survived, one in the library of Rice University, Houston, and the other at the Chawton House Library, University of Southampton. That this is the only candidate would not in itself be strong evidence, since there is no reason to assume that any copies of Mary Ann's work must have survived. There are in the plot of «i» The Offspring of Fancy «/i» no events which are so close to the known facts of Mary Ann's life that they compel us to identify her as the author. Opinions expressed by the letter writers, and even some turns of phrase, echo some to be found in Mary Ann's memoir, but again these are not so unusual as to be conclusive. In writing about her novel Mary Ann twice uses the word «i» fancy «/i» which could be a hint which she expected her son to recognise, but equally it could be an insignificant coincidence. It is Flyn who provides the most telling evidence. He used his newspaper to advertise his other business interests, such as his lottery agency and his stock of the latest books. Week after week the same titles appear, with every so often a newcomer to the list. Novels are in a minority amongst his titles. Clearly, if he had fifty copies of a new novel by an anonymous lady to sell he would need to advertise them quite vigorously, and sure enough on 5 October 1778 he announced, in a separate notice apart from his routine list, 'Just imported and now selling for the author … a few sets of the London edition of a new Novel in letters called The Offspring of Fancy, written by an Irish lady'. Coincidences are always possible, but this announcement makes it all but certain that Mary Ann's novel was indeed «i» The Offspring of Fancy«/i» . This means that we can look in the novel not for evidence of authorship but for reflections and echoes of Mary Ann's ideas and the events of her life. The first point to make is that the novel is further removed from a literal chronicle of her life than one might have expected. In her 1803 letter she emerges as intelligent and literate, but not, perhaps, as highly self-critical or self-aware; not, therefore, a writer likely to place great artistic distance between herself and her material. My initial hypothesis when trying to discover her novel was that it would probably be a thinly disguised account of her own sufferings and the injustices perpetrated against her by the Canning family after her husband's death. During his lifetime her husband had contemplated publishing their love-letters and other documents to draw attention to his mistreatment at the hands of his father, Stratford Canning of Garvagh and Abbey Street, Dublin. Before she went on the stage Mary Ann too had considered authorship as a tactic against the tyrannical and eccentric Stratford. What we actually find in «i» The Offspring of Fancy «/i» is something more inventive than a naïve fictionalisation of Mary Ann's own life, although there are many places where we can point to incidents in her life as prototypes of incidents in the novel, and in general the novel affords insights into her view of herself and her predicament. The principal letter writer is Marianne Clement, and she contains many elements of Mary Ann's character. Marianne is emotional and impulsive, tolerant, charitable, articulate and intelligent. Her more rigidly virtuous sister warns her against the moral laxity of some of her London companions, notably Mrs Belmour who is openly disdainful of her husband but is pleasant and amusing company. Marianne says Mrs Belmour shows her largeness of soul by being 'above the little pruderies of narrow minds', but later on she qualifies this by the observation that Mrs Belmour's written language is stilted: 'perfectly grammatical, provokingly correctandthat's all'. What Marianne finds most disturbing about her elegant friend is her indifference to her children. Marianne (like Mary Ann) is an enthusiastic breast-feeder, and believes in inoculation. There are 3
touching letters between Mary Ann and her first husband's sister Mollie Barnard concerning the bond of love between mother and child and the pain and guilt arising from infant death, and these ideas are echoed by Marianne in the novel. Marianne's sense of superiority to conventions and her devotion to home and children are alike the result of her belief in Nature as the guide to life and duty. The claims of Nature feature strongly in the dispute with her son which was the occasion for Mary Ann's letter of 1803. One of the characters, Sophia Mason, draws the following comparison between Marianne Clement and her sister Charlotte Bellas: Mrs. Clement is lively, to a degree of giddiness, that, to a superficial observer, would imply a total unconcern for the whole human race, nay, even for herself, and her estimation in the world; yet is her large heart, and bestowing hand, the fountain of happiness to all who fall within her knowledge; capable of quick and strong impressions, she always makes her judgement wait upon her feelingsor, in other words, her heart dictates, and her head must acquiesce, or labour in vain.-… Mrs. Bellas is an excellent wife upon the principles of duty, to a worthy man indeed, who merits all her attention; but she would be as good a wife to a man less deserving, from sentiment alone;Mrs. Clement is a good wife to the man of her choice; but had she married a man to whom she did not look up with a consciousness of his superior sense and continued desert, her feelings are so incapable of disguise, that the sense of duty would often sleep, whilst her quick apprehension of injury, and her conscious merit of better treatment, would shew itself in spite of all the Schools for Wives that poets fancy and hypocrites admire. Whether or not Mary Ann was consciously drawing a picture of herself here, it is certainly borne out by the facts of her life. Some of the points in Sophia's account of Marianne are clearly idealisations, and we might question whether Mary Ann always lived up to them, whether she was always the fountain of happiness for all, but the point about Marianne's attitude to her husband is certainly true, prophetically true of Mary Ann. Mary Ann had three partners, George Canning senior, Samuel Reddish and Richard Hunn, very different men but all in their way highly unsatisfactory. Of these the first two, for all their faults, were men she could look up to, Canning a poet and martyr to probity, Reddish a talented and popular acting star. Towards them she was loyal and, so far as one can tell, loving. Richard Hunn, whom she was to meet and marry in Plymouth, would turn out contemptible, and she hated him. One thing that Marianne says about herself is almost certainly a deliberate bit of self-portraiture by Mary Ann: For my own part(one cannot forget self in any thing) I always premise to my correspondents a happy ignorance of grammatical rules; nor do I know (exactly) the difference between a comma and semicolon.I have a redundancy of ideas, and a tolerable ear; a wish to be entertained myself, and to entertain my friends:add to these, a love of the goose-quill; and my whole stock of literary accomplishments pass in review before you. This gives a very good idea of the style not only of Marianne's letters in the novel, but of Mary Ann's own letters. In her letter of 1803 there are commas and semi-colons, and full-stops as well, but her favourite punctuation mark is the dash of different lengths. She rattles on with a redundancy of ideas, and she certainly loves the goose-quill. There is a portrait in oils of Mary Ann in Leeds, and it shows her at her desk, quill in hand. Nonetheless, she is a clever enough writer to produce a more restrained and disciplined style for other characters in the novel. She refers in her letter to discussions she had with a friend over the production of the novel, so it is possible that this friend, whoever she was, helped her to produce letters in a more formal style than her own. A final point about Marianne Clement as a self-portrait of the author is her surname. Mary Ann's first husband George was a disappointed man, frustrated by his father's animosity and by his own obstinacy. He was often gloomy and always reserved and distant. He was in his thirties at the time 4
of his marriage, when Mary Ann was only eighteen (or twenty-one she didn't know her date of birth). Mary Ann says she loved and respected him, but admits to finding him difficult to live with. Her married life was enlivened by the presence of George's younger brother Stratford, known in the family as Stratty. She found she could talk freely with Stratty. On George's death Stratty supported her both emotionally and financially. The relationship between them was intimate enough to arouse the jealousy of Stratty's intended wife, Mehitabel, known as Hetty. After a visit to London from which her friends expected her to return to Dublin a married woman, Hetty put it about that Stratty no doubt would marry her when his sister (meaning Mary Ann) gave him leave. When Stratty was trying to help Mary Ann to a respectable living as a milliner, it was Hetty who prevented it (prudently as it turned out) and so pushed Mary Ann onto the stage. The first consequence of going on the stage was a rift between Stratty and Mary Ann, which culminated in 1776 or 1777 in Stratty taking over the care of young George, and forbidding any contact between mother and son. Mary Ann undoubtedly felt great affection for Stratty, and a corresponding sense of betrayal. In the novel, Mr Clement is a man of business (as Stratty was) and he is generous, honourable, lighthearted, sociable, in contrast to the upright but often gloomy and self-absorbed Mr Bellas, recalling the contrast between Stratty and his elder brother. It is tempting to see the marriage of the Clements as a picture of what might have been if Mary Ann could have married Stratty; and this temptation is the stronger because Stratty's house and place of business were in St Clement's Lane. The novel, like so many, is about marriages, prudent and imprudent, successful and unsuccessful. It shows girls at the dangerous age when a wrong decision can lead to disaster, either a loss of reputation or entrapment in a loveless marriage. It shows love matches, trick marriages, arranged marriages and forced marriages, and none of these can be guaranteed to lead to success. As believers in Nature, neither Mary Ann nor Marianne would sanction a marriage without love, and that must mean a free choice, but the fact remains that marriages freely entered into as love matches are as likely to be disastrous as any other kind. The heart is the only guide, but it is a deeply flawed and fallible guide. This ambivalent attitude to the heart as guide is present when Mary Ann looks back on her own first marriage. She turned down several advantageous offers because her heart was not engaged. She and George met in Islington Spa and fell immediately and violently in love. Mary Ann is emphatic on this point. She loved George and she went on adoring him until she was torn away from his death bed and his putrefying body. Given what we know of her strongmindedness, there can have been no question of her guardians (her grandfather and uncle Melchior and Gustavus Guy-Dickens) forbidding or preventing the marriage. Yet she seems, looking back from 1803, to blame them for taking no steps to investigate George's suitability as a husband. Looking back, Mary Ann could see that men of the world such as Melchior and Gustavus should have had their suspicions aroused by George's odd behaviour at the time he several times postponed the marriage, and for several months went into hiding, forbidding Mary Ann to visit him and insisting on communicating only by letter. He refuses to give his reason, leaving us to speculate was he hiding from creditors or getting over a dose of the pox? Either reason would tend to make him undesirable as a husband. What seems to be the case is that the Guy-Dickens family were keen to get Mary Ann off their hands, and when George came along they were only too pleased to hand her over to him. Mary Ann at eighteen, unstoppable in her determination to marry, exemplifies what Marianne says in the novel about girls at the dangerous age needing a loving and wise parent to guard them. Although «i» The Offspring of Fancy «/i» is not in a straightforward sense the story of Mary Ann's life, it has many points of contact with her rackety and precarious career, a few of which we have considered here. It is perhaps this that generates a liveliness and bite which one would not necessarily expect from the stock situations and characters portrayed in the novel.

http://www.chawton.org/library/novels/anon_offspring.html

A great granddaughter of the Noads, Miss Teale, who was living at Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1927, possessed an oil portrait of Mary Ann Costelloe, which was illustrated in the Daily Telegraph on 16 April 1927, accompanying a sketch of Mary Ann's life written by Frederick R Gale, whose wife, nee Emily Frances Tapply was a great grand daughter of Mary Ann's son, Capt Frederick Hunn, R.N.