"Mrs Jordan's Profession" by Claire Tomalin

Mrs (Dora) Jordan was the stage name of an actress who wowed the London and provincial stage in the run up and during the Napoleonic wars. Although she never formally married (the 'Mrs' part of the stage name enabled her to muddy the waters regarding her marital status) she had one child very young and another two with a Mr Ford before becoming the long term mistress of the Duke of Clarence (third son of George III and subsequently King William IV) and having ten children with him, living in a degree of domestic bliss, mostly while continuing to appear on the stage. It was an interesting biography of a woman who must have been incredibly strong: she was born in relative obscurity and poverty and her hard work and talent on the stage meant that she was the breadwinner for her entire family for most of her life; the Duke was always in debt and although he did give her an allowance she regularly helped him out financially. It demonstrates that even in times that were even more misogynistic than today, a strong women had the ability to transcend classist and sexist discrimination.

Mrs Jordan was an unfortunate stage name in that it was slang for a chamber pot, leading to a field day for cartoonists.

Her children:

• Fanny, daughter, perhaps as a result of rape, of Richard Daly, married Thomas Alsop and had a daughter. Dora was forever baling them out financially. Fanny, without much talent, went on the stage and, after Dora's death) to New York where she killed herself using laudanum. No one knows what happened to the daughter.
• Dodee, daughter of Richard Ford, married Frederic March who precipitated Dora's eventual bankruptcy when she gave him permission to draw on her bank and became responsible for his massive debts; they had children.
• Lucy, daughter of Richard Ford, married an elderly general and had ten children, three of whom had children.
• Of the Duke's children (all illegitimate grandchildren of George III):
• George became Earl of Munster, the line continues although George, disappointed at not being properly recognised by that prude Queen C}Victoria, his cousin, committed suicide.
• Sophia married Sir Philip Sidney, become chatelaine of Penshurst Place and spawning the Barons de L'Isle, now Viscounts
• Henry served in the army and navy and died aged 20
• Mary married Charles Fox
• Frederick married Lady Augusta Boyle
• Elizabeth married the Earl of Errol and her daughter married the Earl of Fife whose daughter produced talented offspring including John Julis Norwich and whose son married the daughter of Edward VII producing Princess Alexandra who married Prince Arthus of Connaught whopse son is the Earl of Macduff.
• Adolphus  died aged 54
• Augusta married twice, firstly an Erskine; offspring continue
• Augustus  married Sarah Gordon and their offspring continue
• Amelia married Viscount Falkland and had a daughter.

Many of the things that interested me about this book were because I used to live in Sunbury-on-Thames (which housed a boarding school where a young Augustus went) near Hampton (whose parish church was frequented by the King, his mistress and their illegitimate offspring) and my Dad worked at the National Physical Laboratory which was built around Bushy House, the home to the Duke of Clarence, Mrs Jordan and the FitzcClarences (it had a water closet on every floor and, later, both a bath and a shower. I know Richmond, where Prince William lived in Ivy Lodge on a terrace close to the Thames, and Petersham, where Dora Jordan lived with her first 'husband' Richard Ford and where Clarence bought Petersham Lodge. She also played in the "very good theatre" in Margate: it's still there. This gave me a special interest.

Otherwise I was interested by the people Mrs Jordan bumped into who included:

• Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright (eg The Rivals) and owner of Drury Lane Theatre; also the great-uncle of gothic novelist Sheridan LeFanu
• Charles James Fox, politician, whose relative Mary married
• Fanny Burney, a rather prudish novelist who was a royal hanger-on
• Samuel and William Ireland who 'discovered' a forged Shakespeare play, Vortigern, which was put on stage by Sheridan for one night (it was booed and hissed off the stage), Mrs Jordan starring. Peter Ackroyd wrote The Lambs of London, a novel which tells about this attempted fraud.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a Canbridge undergraduate and fan
• William Hazlitt, a theatre critic
• Charles Lamb, a young clerk and fan

Other interesting moments:

• "Money, and the confidence of money, was the message of all this paving, lighting, bridging, sewerage, brick and stucco." (C 3)
• "Art and public morality do not always face in the same direction." (C 3)
• "Sheridan was interrupted in the middle of seducing a governess ... even as Fox was persuading Elizabeth [Sheridan's wife] to forgive him." (C 7)
• "Oh for England and the pretty girls of Westminster; at least to such as would not clap or pox me every time I fucked." C 8; but this is a quote from a letter written by Prince William, late Duke of Clarence; later King William IV on 23rd July 1784
• "It is hard to believe that Margate once rivalled Brighton as a fashionable resort." (C 13)

An intertesting portrait of an incredible strong woman.

April 2020; 335 pages