-1771) Admiral Boscawen Sir William Addington (1775) Lessingham first came to the stage during 1756, when she played Desdemona in a production of Othello at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

It was not until March, 1762 that she began to use the stage name ‘Lessingham’, when she took the part of Silvia in George Farquhar's play The Recruiting Officer.

The diarist John Taylor recorded that Lessingham's career began with the support of poet Samuel Derrick, with whom she was having an affair.

[2] However in his memoirs, the actor Tate Wilkinson noted that in 1756 she was the pupil of John Rich (founder of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden), who was behind the launch of her career.

However, this success was the subject of much speculation and scandal, in particular during the public dispute which broke out between Harris and fellow theatre manager George Colman in 1768.

In his history of the English stage, historian John Genest wrote that Lessingham was 'only a second, or rather a third rate actress- nothing but private reasons, unconnected with the theatre, could have influenced Harris to support her in the way he did'.

[6] The theatre critic John Roach recorded that the pair initially argued over Harris’ insistence on a private dressing room for Lessingham.

[7] Further dispute was caused over both Harris and Lessingham's insistence that she should play the role of Imogene in a production Cymbeline, which Colman had already assigned to another actress Mrs Yates.

James Stewart described her as a ‘water-gruel actress’, however ‘tolerable as Jacintha [in The Suspicious Husband], Nerissa [in The Merchant of Venice] and other parts in boy's clothes’.

In his concluding remarks, the presiding judge said ‘Unmindful of [your] conjugal vow, and not having the fear of God before [your] eyes, but being instigated and seduced by the devil, [you] did commit adultery with one or more strange person… and was by such criminal conversation begot with child’.

[9] At some stage, the pair lived together in Shoe Lane, Holborn, where Derrick helped to prepare Lessingham to begin a career as an actress.

This is confirmed by Captain William Hanger, who in his 1772 memoirs, wrote that ‘At the time Mrs L__m, the actress, was supported in a most splendid manner by Admiral B__n, whilst he was gaining laurels for himself, and glory for his country abroad, the captain [Hanger] most politely attended her at home, to prevent her grief becoming too violent in the absence of her naval admirer’.

[1] One rumour tells of their affair beginning after Lessingham lifted the skirts of her petticoat to expose her legs to Harris; a story perpetuated by widely circulated prints on the matter.

[14] Utilising his connection with Colonel McMahon, secretary to the prince regent, Harris arranged in 1813 for two of his sons to gain employment in India.

The letter read: ‘Mrs L__m – who, to the unspeakable distress of Mr. H___, has eloped to some corner of the earth, with a new paramour, utterly unknow[n] to the afflicted Menelaus.

It was described as ‘a small, but elegant villa, situate[d] on the most elevated part of the north side of Hampstead Heath, with about two acres of land laid out with distinguished taste in pleasure grounds, shrubberies and kitchen garden’ in 1783 by the estate agent selling the property after her death.

This is concurred by Warren Oakley in his book Thomas Jupiter Harris: Spinning Dark Intrigue at Covent Garden Theatre, 1767-1820.

[1] In 1802, her son William Frederick replaced her gravestone with a new inscription reading: ‘MRS JANE LESSINGHAM, late of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden Obt 13 March 1783, [sic] aet 44.

Her grateful and affectionate son WILLIAM FREDERICK, caused this tomb to be repaired, anno 1802, as a last token of respect to her memory’.

Regulated from the prompt-books, By Permission of the Managers (London: printed for the proprietors, under the direction of John Bell, British Library, Strand, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 1792).

Altered from [sic] Shakspeare by Colley Cibber, Esq; Marked with the variations in the manager's book, at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane (London: T. and W. Lowndes, W. Nicoll, and S. Bladon, 1784).

Rubenhold, Hallie, The Covent Garden Ladies; Pimp General Jack and the Extraordinary Story of Harris's List (London: Tempus Publishing, 2005).

Marked with the variations of the manager's book, at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden (London: printed for J. Rivington and Sons, L. Davis, W. Nicoll, and S. Bladon, 1777).