Isabella Hill

Isabella Hill (1 April 1833 – 6 June 1879), better known as Mrs Howard Paul, was an English actress, operatic singer and actress-manager of the Victorian era, best remembered for creating the role of Lady Sangazure in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Sorcerer.

Her stage career began in 1853 in London in ballad operas, such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1854 she married the American writer Henry Howard Paul, in whose comic entertainments the two performed for much of the next two decades, often on tour, both in Britain and America. She was popular for her musical impersonations of singers of the day. She also played in Victorian burlesque and other theatrical roles, among the best known of which was her Lady Macbeth at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1869. Various composers wrote songs for her to premiere.

After The Sorcerer, Gilbert and Sullivan cast Mrs Paul in their next opera, H.M.S. Pinafore, but her vocal abilities had declined so much by that point that they cut parts of her role, and she resigned from the production.

Early life and career

Mrs Howard Paul was born as Isabella Hill at Dartford in Kent, the daughter of George Thomas Hill, a leather merchant. She was educated in France and Italy, and studied singing under the composer and teacher George French Flowers, whose biographer Louisa Middleton rates her as "perhaps his most distinguished" pupil.

Under the name Isabella Featherstone she began her stage career as a member of the Strand Theatre company in London. There, in January 1853, she played Tom Tug in Charles Dibdin's ballad opera The Waterman. According to the theatrical newspaper The Era, she made a great hit. She appeared briefly at the Theatre Royal, Cork the following month, In April she was cast as Margery in Thomas Arne's Love in a Village at the Strand. The Era commented, "We take the opportunity of predicting for her much future success. She has an excellent voice and is by no means devoid of acting capabilities." After this, she played Lucy Lockit in The Beggar's Opera. They included Drury Lane's Christmas pantomime in December 1853, and, the following month, Mark Lemon's Paula Lazarro, in which she played Juana. They went on to Paris, where she played for a month at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in a specially-written sketch, La fille adroit, which was highly praised by Jules Janin in the Journal des débats.

Later the same year she acted in her husband's play My Neighbor Opposite and a comic duologue, Locked Out, which proved to be very popular and toured extensively in the provinces. In September 1855 she was engaged at Wallack's Theatre in New York City. In 1858 she took part with her husband in an entertainment called Patchwork, described as "a clatter of fun, frolic, song, and impersonation carried on by performers of unfailing dash"; they performed this popular piece in London and elsewhere for some years. In July of the same year she was Sir Launcelot de Lake (sic) in the Lancashire Witches, or the Knight and the Giants, a burlesque included as part of an entertainment that opened the Lyceum Theatre. In September of that year, she was back in London at the Strand Theatre playing Mrs Dove in her husband's Ripples on the Lake. At the Olympic Theatre in 1868 she appeared in the title role of The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein; She repeated the role in a French version of this in Paris. and Jemimer Cobb ("cruelly deceived by the Footman who wore false whiskers"). In February 1870, she was playing Drogan in Genevieve de Brabant in New York. She played the title role in H. B. Farnie's burlesque Little Gil Blas at the Princess's Theatre, London from December 1870. She was Mistigris in Babil and Bijou by Dion Boucicault at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden (1872–73), with music by Hervé and Frederick Clay.

Her appearance in The Sorcerer proved to be her last London engagement; by this stage in her career her voice was deteriorating. She was engaged to play Cousin Hebe in the next Gilbert and Sullivan production, H.M.S. Pinafore (for which she was to be paid 10 guineas a week "to sing and act as principal contralto during the period of the run"). Gilbert made an effort to write an amusing part for her despite Sullivan's reluctance to use her, but her declining abilities were apparent, and cuts were made to her part. By mid-May 1878, both Gilbert and Sullivan wanted her out of the cast; unhappy with the cuts, Mrs Paul left the production. With only a week to go before opening night, Carte engaged the concert singer Jessie Bond to play the now much smaller role of Cousin Hebe.

Meanwhile, Mrs Howard Paul had left her husband in around 1877, as he was having an affair with the actress-dancer Letty Lind, by whom he fathered two illegitimate children. His wife continued performing under her married name. Her last performance was in May 1879 in Sheffield as Mrs Denham in James Albery's comedy The Crisis. On 1 June, a critic in The Era wrote, "We have rarely seen better acting … Mrs Howard Paul as Mrs Denham alone repays a visit". By the time the notice appeared she had been taken gravely ill. She was brought to her home in London near Bedford Park, Turnham Green, and on 6 June 1879 she died there. She was buried at Brompton Cemetery in West London. Another contemporary critic considered that she had in fact achieved a high position: