Anne or Ann Ford, (Mrs Philip Thicknesse, 22 February 1737 – 20 January 1824) was an 18th-century English musician and singer, famous in her time for a scandal that attended her struggle to perform in public.

Life and music

Some aspects of Anne Ford's life are typical of talented and gifted women in the traditional class society of 18th-century England. She gained more education than most as she had a knowledge of five foreign languages and played several fretted string instruments, including the lute-like English guitar and the

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

, comparable to a modern

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

. This gave her a chance to perform with others giving Sunday concerts at her house, although her father, Thomas Ford, refused to allow her to perform publicly. She also was a singer with a beautiful voice by her early twenties, but her earliest attempts to appear in public venues were unsuccessful; her father went so far as to have her arrested twice to prevent her escaping his control. Eventually she made a successful escape, and held her first public subscription concert on 18 March 1760. She performed a series of subsequent concerts, including daily performances from 24 October to 30 October of that year, although it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the ''viol di gambo''. Ford gave a performance at

Spring Gardens Spring Gardens is a dead-end street at the south east extreme of St. James's, London, England, that crosses the east end of The Mall between Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square. Part of the old liberty of Westminster and the current City of W ...

in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, ''Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses''. The instrument was comparable to the

glass harp A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses. It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Eac ...

of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by

Marianne Davies Marianne Davies (1743 or 1744 – c. 1818) was an English musician, and the sister of the classical soprano Cecilia Davies. She was a singer who also played flute and harpsichord. In 1762 she became the first person to publicly perform on the ...

. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the Earl of Jersey, who offered her £800 a year to be his mistress. When she refused, Lord Jersey tried to sabotage her initial public concert, but she earned £15 from it nonetheless. In 1761 she published a pamphlet, ''A Letter from Miss F—d to a Person of Distinction,'' defending her position. This in turn provoked a pamphlet from the Earl, ''A Letter to Miss F–d.'' The brief pamphlet war between them differed in subject and tone from others conducted in that era.

Later life

On 27 September 1762, she became the third wife of Philip Thicknesse, thereby gaining higher social standing. They had a son who became Captain John Thicknesse For more on John Thicknesse see: RN (c. 1763–1846). She and her husband were travelling to Italy in 1792, during the Reign of Terror in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, when Thicknesse died suddenly in Boulogne. Anne was arrested as a foreigner and imprisoned. After the execution of

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...

in July 1794, she was released under a general pardon for all prisoners who could prove that they could earn their living; her profession stood her in good stead. In 1800 Anne Ford published an autobiographical ''

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship be ...

'' entitled ''The School for Fashion'', which included many public figures of the day in thin disguise. She herself featured as Euterpe. Her portrait was painted by

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

in 1760.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Anne English women singers 1737 births 1824 deaths