Sarah Baker (18th-century actress)

To support her young family, from 1772 to 1777 Baker managed her mother's Sadler's Wells company featuring "rope-dancing, tumbling, musical interludes, burlettas, and all the clothes, scenery and machinery 'entirely new'".

"[10] Baker's company toured all over Kent, including: Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, Faversham and Tunbridge Wells in addition to occasional visits to Folkestone, Deal, Sandwich, Lewes and Sittingbourne.

A playbill from the 1770s for the Bartholomew Fair states that Mrs. Baker's Company will appear at the Greyhound Yard Theatre where they will perform Charles Dibdin's 1774 ballad opera The Waterman, with Lewy Owen as Robin and Miss Wakelin as Wilhelmina.

[11] When her mother retired in 1777, Baker created a new touring company with which she performed plays including those of William Shakespeare and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in addition to continuing to offer traditional fairground and variety entertainment.

[12] As her company became more established Baker was able to attract more famous performers, including Charles Incledon, George Frederick Cooke, Dorothea Jordan and Joseph Grimaldi, the latter of whom appeared with her in Rochester in 1801.

[13] Her company's repertoire included several Shakespeare plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice were performed at least weekly during the 1780s while comic operas and Dibdin's locally themed The Merry Hop-Pickers, or, Kentish Frolicks were regularly on the bill.