[2] After performing as a young girl, Vaughan had a seven-year engagement at the Gaiety Theatre in London from 1876 to 1883, where she joined its Victorian burlesque troupe that included Nellie Farren and Edward Terry.
Vaughan was born in London; as a young girl she appeared on stage in the West End, where her father was an orchestral musician.
This was a time when Nellie Farren, Edward O'Connor Terry and E. W. Royce were the stars at the theatre, particularly in Victorian burlesque.
[citation needed] After a break she reappeared on stage in the summer of 1885, where she did a short cameo appearance for just two well-received minutes each night.
[10] Her biographer, W. J. Lawrence, calls Vaughan "the greatest dancer of her century" so far as "grace, magnetism, and spirituality" are concerned.
But when in addition we remember that her dancing was so superb, so graceful, and so artistic, that in a moment it could sweep aside all the rooted prejudice of years in favour of ballet dancing, and could assert its superiority by sheer force of its own merits, we must unhesitatingly place Kate Vaughan as the greatest dancer of her time.