Smith, Sarah

1783?

1850

There is conflicting information about the parentage and early years of this actress, but she seems to have been born in 1783, the daughter of a country actor named Williamson and his wife, who was supposedly the daughter of General Dillon of Galway. Some testimony suggests that Sarah’s surname was actually O’Shaugnessy. In any event, she adopted the stage name of Miss Smith, apparently after her mother’s second marriage, when she appeared in Salisbury as Edward in “Every One Has His Fault”. She was 16 when she played Joanna in “The Deserted Daughter” at Liverpool. After some years at Edinburgh, York, Birmingham and Bath, she made her debut at Covent Garden on 2 October 1805 as Lady Townley in “The Provok’d Husband”. Later her reputation was enhanced when she recited Collins’s ‘Ode to the Passions,’ memorialized by De Wilde’s drawing (G0767). Though she continued in London as a successful tragic actress, Miss Smith was overshadowed first by Mrs Siddons and then by Eliza O’Neill. She joined Drury Lane in January 1813, and on 23 August 1814 she married the actor George Bartley. She went with him to America in 1818 and returned to England in 1820 to act in the country and then again in London. After suffering some years with paralysis, she died in London on 14 January 1850. Sarah Smith’s finest characters were Belvidera in “Venice Preserv’d” and Estifania in “Rule a Wife and Have a Wife”. Leigh Hunt highly praised her genius for high tragedy and low comedy. (DNB)