Mary Anne Stirling

Mary Anne (Fanny) Stirling (1815 – 28 December 1895) was an English actress renowned for her comedy roles in a career for over fifty years.

Portrait of Fanny Stirling, made in 1836 by Richard Lane, ARA

Mary Anne Stirling
Born	29 July 1815 Mayfair
Died	28 September 1895 Marylebone
Nationality	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Spouse(s)	Edward Lambert Sir Charles Hutton Gregory

Biography

Stirling was born in Mayfair on 29 July 1815, the daughter of Mary Ann (born Spense) and a spendthrift father Captain Simon Kehl. She appeared as Zephyrina, the widow, in The Devil and the Widow at the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel in January 1832. Later that year she married the playwright Edward Lambert. They worked together and they were known as Mr and Mrs Stirling and her husband's first play was Sadak and Kalasrade which was performed in Theatre Royal, Birmingham in 1835.[1] Having been successful as Celia in As You Like It and Sophia in The Road to Ruin, Macready gave her an opportunity to play Cordelia to his Lear, and Madeline Weir to his James V in the Rev. James White's King of the Commons.[2]

In 1852 she created Peg Woffington in Reade and Taylor's Masks and Faces. Meanwhile, she had married Edward Stirling (d. 1894), an actor, manager and dramatic author.[2]

Stirling as the nurse and Ellen Terry as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet is a painting by Anna Lea Merritt

In later years Mrs Stirling gained a new popularity as the nurse in Irving's presentation (1882) of Romeo and Juliet where she was said to "steal the show" from a cast that included Ellen Terry but she returned to the role in 1884 with Mary Anderson; and she was the Martha in Irving's production of Faust (1885). She died on 28 December 1895, having in the previous year married Sir Charles Hutton Gregory (1817–1898).[1]

She is buried in Brompton Cemetery; at her request there were very few mourners, one of whom was the actor-manager Squire Bancroft.[3] London. A biography of her was published in 1922 by her grandson Percy Allen; the appendix lists all the principal parts Mrs Stirling played from 1831/2 to 1885.[4] An obituary in The Era also gives an extensive critique of her many performances.[3]

Her second husband died in London on 10 January 1898, and he was also buried in Brompton Cemetery.[5]

Notes

1. "Stirling [née Hehl], Mary Anne [Fanny] (1813–1895), actress | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26533
2. Chisholm 1911, p. 924.
3. "Death of Mrs Stirling", The Era, p. 13, 4 January 1896
4. Allen, Percy (1922). The stage life of Mrs. Stirling : with some sketches of the nineteenth century theatre. London: T.F. Unwin. OCLC 1148853.
5. New York Times Obituary (11 January 1898)

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Stirling, Mary Anne". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 924.