[1] Mary Ann Vincent was born in Portsmouth, England on September 18, 1818, the daughter of an Irishman named Farlin.

Left an orphan at an early age, she turned to the stage, making her first appearance in 1834 as Lucy in The Review, at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

[2][3] In 1846, the then Mrs Vincent went to America to join the stock company of the old National Theatre in Boston, where she became a great favourite.

[2] The National Theatre burned in 1852, and thenceforth, until her death, on September 4, 1887, Mrs. Vincent was connected with the company at the Boston Museum.

[3] Her memory is still honoured by the Vincent Memorial Hospital, founded in Boston in 1890 by popular subscription, and which was formally opened on April 6, 1891, by Bishop Phillips Brooks, as a hospital for wage-earning women and girls.