Author: Vaughan, Mrs.
Biography:
VAUGHAN, Mrs (fl 1824)
In the preface to her tragedy The Grecians (1824), Mrs. Vaughan excuses the presumption of a woman’s writing on the subject of warfare—the current Greek war of independence—by maintaining that her intent is to inspire readers with the love of liberty. The Grecians appears to have been her only published work, and it did not attract much attention. The only “Mrs. Vaughan” highly visible in the newspapers about this time was an actress who played older women at the Theatre Royal, Dublin. In 1824, for example, she played Gertrude to the visiting London star William Charles Macready (1793-1873) and Volumnia to his Coriolanus. Ponsonby describes her as a leading lady brought into the Dublin theatre after her marriage in 1820 to a native of the city named Vaughan; in her earlier career in Plymouth and London, according to him, she had been “Mrs. Yates.” There are several known actresses of that name but their careers do not match this profile, and Ponsonby may have been mistaken. The fate of the Dublin actress is not known; she must have left the stage in 1829, because after that point she is referred to in the past tense. But “Mrs. Vaughan” might not have been an actress at all. (findmypast.com 8 Apr. 2024; Belfast Commercial Chronicle 11 Sept. 1824; Pilot [Dublin] 13 Nov. 1829; E. Ponsonby, The History of the Theatre Royal, Dublin, from its Foundation in 1821 to the Present Time [1870], 39) HJ