Helena Faucit

[4] Her debut, a spectacular success, placed her at once among the leading actresses in London, helping to fill the void left by the retirement of Fanny Kemble in 1834.

Her success in The Hunchback was followed by turns as Belvidera in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd, and as Margaret in Joanna Baillie's The Separation.

Though her interpretation of Belvidera was received coldly by critics, she remained a favourite of playgoers; already in that first season, she was signed to a three-year contract at Covent Garden.

In the following year, Faucit played numerous Shakespearean roles, among them Juliet, Imogen (Cymbeline), Hermione (The Winter's Tale), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), and Cordelia (King Lear), alongside both Macready and the soon-to-retire Charles Kemble.

Her non-Shakespearean roles during the three years at Covent Garden included the female leads in Lytton's Duchess de la Vallière, Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, The Sea Captain, and Money, in Robert Browning's Strafford,[4] and in Knowles's Woman's Wit.

Faucit occasionally returned to London, but her main activity for the remainder of her career was touring, especially in Manchester and in Sheffield, where her brother owned a theatre.

[7] Martin, the official biographer of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had begun courting her as early as 1843; she finally accepted his proposal in 1851.