Author: Beverley, Elizabeth
Biography:
BEVERLEY, Elizabeth (c. 1792-1832: Orlando)
She was an actor who, failing to secure work, turned to writing as a career. The only certain biographical information is an account of her death, in the Lambeth workhouse, on 19 Nov. 1832, aged 40. A birth year of about 1792 can be inferred but no records have been found and the names of her parents are not known. She sometimes published as “Mrs R. Beverley” but her husband is not otherwise identified. He was not Mr. Beverley, a successful theatre manager; he died in 1842 leaving four sons and a daughter. From her poems it seems that Beverley’s husband died in about 1820. Her first publication in book form was likely The Indefatigable (c. 1815) and, while she seems to have continued working as an entertainer for at least a time and travelled through the south-west of England giving performances, writing became the main source of her income. One of the poems in The Actress’s Ways and Means describes the horrifying death of her daughter, Emma, by fire at Portsmouth. Her final published book is probably Odd Thoughts in Prose and Verse (1828); at the end she includes an advertisement for her elocution lessons and a statement that she is not related to the Beverleys of the Tottenham Court theatre. (Orlando 1 June 2023; Morning Post 16 May 1811; Weekly Dispatch 26 Nov. 1832; Caledonian Mercury 4 Aug. 1842)
Other Names:
- Mrs. Elizabeth Beverley
- Mrs. R. Beverley
- Mrs. R. Beverly