Isabella Vincent

Isabella Burchell became known as Isabella Vincent and Mrs Mills (1734 – June 9, 1802) was a British milkmaid and later singer at Vauxhall Gardens for ten years.

Isabella Vincent
Mrs Mills by George Engleheart engraved by John Raphael Smith
Born
Isabella Burchell

1734
DiedJune 9, 1802
London
NationalityGreat Britain
Other namesMrs Mills
Occupationsinger
EmployerVauxhall Gardens
Spouse(s)Vincent, John Mills

Life

She was said to have been a milkmaid who was trained as a singer at the expense of Jonathan Tyers and brought to London from near his estate in Surrey in 1751. Tyers owned the Denbies estate in Surrey and he had heard her near there.[1] Tyers had a long lease on the Vauxhall Gardens and she was employed there for ten seasons.[2]

In 1759 she appeared to great success in The Beggar's Opera at Vauxhall Gardens. The following year she appeared again at Vauxhall alongside Charlotte Brent which invited comparisons between them in the press.[3] When she travelled by coach with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham that year. Bentham boasted of meeting the "famous" Mrs Vincent who had entertained him with songs within the stage coach.[4] Vincent had her first role of the stage when David Garrick put on the Beggar's Opera at Drury Lane and cast Vincent in the leading role of Polly.[3]

Vincent continued to appear in the theatre although she was not noted for her acting, although her singing was well received and she was cast in two operas. Every year she would take the lead in the Beggars's Opera until her final season in 1767 when she sang the part once as a widow as her husband had died in 1766.[3] She remarried in 1767 to John Mills who was a sea captain for the East India Company. They had met at Marylebone Gardens where she had been singing, each summer, since 1864.

She would appear as "Mrs Mills".[5]

Vincent went to India with her daughter and her last husband but died in London in 1802.[2]

Private life

On 25 August 1755 she married Richard Vincent who lead the orchestra at Vauxhall. They had three daughters but Elizabeth who was born in 1757 was the only survivor. Richard died in 1766.[2] She and her second husband, John Mills, had another son John Wedderburn Samuel Thomas Mills who was baptized and died in Calcutta in 1769.

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References
  1. "Singers at Vauxhall Gardens". www.vauxhallgardens.com. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
  2. "Vincent [née Burchell; other married name Mills], Isabella (1734/5–1802), singer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64360. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
  3. "Vincent [née Burchell; other married name Mills], Isabella (1734/5–1802), singer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64360. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
  4. "Jeremy Bentham in a trip from London to Browning Hill, near Reading, Berkshire - late August, 1760 | Listening Experience Database project". led.kmi.open.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
  5. "print | British Museum". The British Museum. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
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