Mary Bradshaw (died 1780) was a British stage actress at

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

for 37 years. She appeared with David Garrick and she was included in a painting by Johann Zoffany.

Life

Bradshaw comes to notice playing young women. She joined the Drury Lane company in 1743/1744 and would remain there for 37 years. In 1760 she was the first person to play the nurse in ''

Polly Honeycombe ''Polly Honeycombe'' is a 1760 afterpiece farce by George Colman the Elder. It comically deals with the effect of novel-reading on not only young women, but on various members of polite 18th-century English society. It was Colman's first play an ...

'' and this became "her part" appearing in that role when it was put on. By this point she had moved successfully to take the role of older women like the nurse. file:Johan Joseph Zoffany - David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick's "The Farmer's Return" - Google Art Project.jpg, left, David Garrick and Mary Bradshaw in David Garrick's "The Farmer's Return from London, The Farmer's Return" by Johan Joseph Zoffany She appeared with David Garrick in the ''Farmer's Wife'' and she a Garrick appeared in Zoffany's painting. Samuel De Wilde reproduced a portrait of Bradshaw by extracting the figure from Zoffany's painting. De Wilde's portrait is the National Portrait Gallery. In 1767 she appeared as Dorcas who is a deaf woman in her seventies who arrives on stage in David Garrick's '' Cymon'' to sing of her age. She was painted in this role by Thomas Parkinson and this painting is owned by the

Garrick Club The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in the heart of London founded in 1831. It is one of the oldest members' clubs in the world and, since its inception, has catered to members such as Charles Kean, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Ar ...

. Bradshaw died in Plymouth in 1780 after her daughter, Elizabeth, was booed off the stage.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradshaw, Mary 1780 deaths British stage actresses 18th-century English actresses 18th-century British actresses Actresses from Plymouth, Devon Year of birth missing