Jane Lessingham

Jane Lessingham (née Hemet, married Stott; 1738 or 1739 –- 13 March 1783) was an English stage actress from 1756 to 1782. Lessingham predominately performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where she was known for both her beauty and her skill as a comedy actress.

Lessingham first came to the stage during 1756, when she played Desdemona in a production of Othello at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It was not until March 1762 that she began to use the stage name ‘Lessingham’, when she took the part of Silvia in George Farquhar's play The Recruiting Officer. During 1768, Lessingham was involved in a public controversy between theatre managers Thomas Harris and George Colman. Colman, and other contemporary sources, cited Lessingham's ambitions as one of the major sources of the conflict.

On 13 March 1783 Lessingham died. She was buried in Hampstead Churchyard and left her estate in trust to Harris for the care of their four sons.

Career The diarist John Taylor recorded that Lessingham's career began with the support of poet Samuel Derrick, with whom she was having an affair. Lessingham's first performance was in the role of Desdemona in a production of Othello on 18 November 1756, under the name of Mrs Stott. She did not return to the stage again for some time, until 1762, when she began using the stage name ‘Lessingham’. Her first part was as Silvia in George Farquhar's play The Recruiting Officer, which she played in male dress. Between 1763 and 1767, Lessingham had moderate success working at Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, Drury Lane, London and a number of small theatres in Bath, Bristol and Richmond.

The Triumphal Entry of the Red Kings by Wisdom and Justice with the Expulsion of their Black Majesties (1768).

Lessingham is pictured on the right, with her breasts exposed and the word 'Lust' written on her leg. To her left is Harris, depicted with ass ears, which Lessingham is stroking. In the middle of the doorway, Colman is depicted flanked by the personified figures of law and justice, who assist him in ousting Harris and Lessingham from the theatre.

Upon her return to the Theatre Royal (where she would remain until the rest of her career), Lessingham's career enjoyed rapid success. However, this success was the subject of much speculation and scandal, in particular during the public dispute which broke out between Harris and fellow theatre manager George Colman in 1768. In his history of the English stage, historian John Genest wrote that Lessingham was 'only a second, or rather a third rate actress- nothing but private reasons, unconnected with the theatre, could have influenced Harris to support her in the way he did'. The theatre critic John Roach recorded that the pair initially argued over Harris’ insistence on a private dressing room for Lessingham. Further dispute was caused over both Harris and Lessingham's insistence that she should play the role of Imogene in a production Cymbeline, which Colman had already assigned to another actress Mrs Yates. In his public pamphlet, Colman wrote that to give the part to Lessingham ‘would be the grossest impartiality, great injustice to Mrs Yates and an affront to the public’.

Lessingham continued to perform at the Theatre Royal until 1782, the year before her death. There, she was paid £4 a week; raised to £7 a week during her last five seasons. In 1776, she appeared as Mrs Sullen in another of Farquhar's plays, The Beaux Stratagem, for which Taylor remarked that ‘the only improbable part of her acting in the character of Mrs Sullen was in the chamber scene with Archer, as from her general manner it did not seem likely that she should resist his importunities when he appeared as a gentleman’. Her other performances in tragic roles were largely not well received. James Stewart described her as a ‘water-gruel actress’, however ‘tolerable as Jacintha [in The Suspicious Husband], Nerissa [in The Merchant of Venice] and other parts in boy's clothes’. Equally, the critic Francis Gentleman described her as a ‘tasteless milksop’, for whom ‘parts eternally would fight, without the sense, or talents, to be right’. Her final role was as Jacintha in Benjamin Hoadley's The Suspicious Husband, in 1782.

Theatreography

Likenesses of Jane Lessingham

Personal life In 1753, Lessingham married naval commander John Stott at St Paul's, Covent Garden. In 1765, Stott divorced Lessingham on the grounds of adultery. At the divorce trial, witnesses attested to the fact that Lessingham had given birth to a child during the three years Stott was at sea. In his concluding remarks, the presiding judge said ‘Unmindful of [your] conjugal vow, and not having the fear of God before [your] eyes, but being instigated and seduced by the devil, [you] did commit adultery with one or more strange person… and was by such criminal conversation begot with child’. Taylor recorded that Lessingham had begun an affair with Derrick before her marriage to Stott, whilst other sources suggest it was during the marriage.

At some stage during the 1760s, likely upon her 1767 return to the Theatre Royal, Lessingham became Harris’ mistress. Utilising his connection with Colonel McMahon, secretary to the prince regent, Harris arranged in 1813 for two of his sons to gain employment in India. The letter read:

In 1775, Lessingham began a relationship with Sir William Addington. In that same year, he granted her land in Gibbet Hill, Hampstead, where she employed a builder to construct a house. Another builder, Henry White, protested that Lessingham wasn't entitled to the grant by filling in the excavations which had begun. In 1776, Lessingham built Heath Lodge in the centre of Hampstead Heath; an Italian villa-style property designed by James Wyatt. It was described as ‘a small, but elegant villa, situate on the most elevated part of the north side of Hampstead Heath, with about two acres of land laid out with distinguished taste in pleasure grounds, shrubberies and kitchen garden’ in 1783 by the estate agent selling the property after her death. Upon her death, the property was left to Harris, however he did not attempt to claim the property until a year later. Instead, it was bought by public auction on 7 June 1783 by William Byron, 5th Baron Byron for £560.

Taylor remarked that this property was built for Lessingham by Harris before she began her relationship with Addington. He also noted that Lessingham later left Addington for a ‘teapot’ actor (named as such for frequently holding his hand on his hip). This is concurred by Warren Oakley in his book Thomas Jupiter Harris: Spinning Dark Intrigue at Covent Garden Theatre, 1767-1820.

Death On 13 March 1783, Lessingham died. She was buried four days later at Hampstead Churchyard, with a gravestone bearing her maiden name. In her will, Lessingham left her estate to Harris, in trust for their four sons Thomas, Charles, Edwin and William Frederick. The document was signed Jane Hemet and verified by Harris a year later. No mention was made of the daughter she bore whilst married to Stott.

In 1802, her son William Frederick replaced her gravestone with a new inscription reading: ‘MRS JANE LESSINGHAM, late of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden Obt 13 March 1783, [sic] aet 44. Her grateful and affectionate son WILLIAM FREDERICK, caused this tomb to be repaired, anno 1802, as a last token of respect to her memory’.