Kate Josephine Bateman

She started out as a child actor with her sister Ellen Bateman, but it was Kate who later developed a career in romantic leading parts.

[1] Kate began appearing on stage by the age of five, at a time when child prodigies were something of a rage in the United States.

[3][1] After performing with Ellen around the Midwest and Southeast for a couple of years, the girls debuted in New York in 1849;[4] their show included excerpts from several of Shakespeare's plays.

[1] The showman P. T. Barnum put them on a large salary to appear at his museum, and in 1850-52 he sponsored their tour of Great Britain as 'The Bateman Children'.

[3] One of Bateman's most celebrated roles was as the title character in Leah the Forsaken, Augustin Daly's adaptation of Mosenthal's Deborah.

[3][7][8] After Bateman returned to the stage she appeared regularly at the Lyceum Theatre in London with her sisters Virginia and Isabel.

[1] When her mother became manager of the Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1879, she appeared as Helen Macgregor in Rob Roy, followed in 1881 by the role of Margaret Field in Henry Arthur Jones's His Wife.