Elizabeth Ann Linley

Elizabeth Ann Sheridan (née Linley; September 1754 – 28 June 1792) was an English singer who was known to have possessed great beauty. She was the subject of several paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, who was a family friend, Joshua Reynolds and Richard Samuel. An adept poet and writer, she became involved with the Blue Stockings Society and participated in Whig politics.

The second of twelve children, and the first daughter of the composer Thomas Linley and his wife Mary Johnson, Elizabeth was herself the wife of the leading playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She was one of the most noted soprano singers of her day, though her husband discouraged her from performing in public after their marriage. Her early life was spent in Bath, the town of her birth, and she probably first appeared on stage beside her brother, Thomas, in 1767 although she started singing in concerts when she was nine years old. The Maid of Bath, a comedy that dramatised and ridiculed her life story, played for 24 nights at the Haymarket Theatre in 1771.

An engagement to a wealthy elderly suitor at the end of 1770 was called off just prior to the anticipated wedding; Elizabeth later eloped to France with Sheridan and a marriage ceremony may have taken place in March 1772 although no records of the matrimony exist. The couple returned to Britain in late April and a formal marriage took place in 1773. Sheridan defended Elizabeth's honour twice during 1772 in duels with a married man, "Captain" Thomas Mathews, who had amorously pursued her.

The Sheridans' relationship was stormy, and both parties had affairs; Elizabeth also had several miscarriages and a stillborn baby before producing a son, Thomas, born in November 1775. One of Elizabeth's lovers was Lord Edward FitzGerald, who was the father of her daughter born on 30 March 1792. Elizabeth had suffered ill-health for some time, which the traumatic labour exacerbated. She died of tuberculosis in June 1792.

Elizabeth Ann Sheridan (née Linley) was born towards the end of 1754, but the exact date varies with sources giving 4, 5 or 7 September, at either Abbey Green or 5 Pierrepont Street, Bath. Her father was Thomas Linley, an English musician and composer, and her mother was Mary Johnson (1729–1820), who was also a talented musician. Elizabeth was baptised at St Michael's church, Bath on 25 September 1754.

Elizabeth was the couple's eldest daughter (there was an older brother but he died in early childhood), and like several of her siblings she inherited her parents' musical abilities. Her general schooling was provided by her mother although one, possibly two, years were spent at a school in Bristol where she was taught the rudiments of French conversation, dancing, drawing, painting and deportment. It is likely that she began singing at concerts when she was only nine years old, and she made her formal stage début alongside her brother, also named Thomas, in 1767 at Covent Garden, London. The concert, or masque, featured music by Bach and was called The Fairy Favour. Elizabeth sang and her brother played the part of Puck.

Their father was rigid in his enforcement of the children's schedules, making them perform weekly in concerts at Bath and at venues in Oxford and London. Mary Dewes, a concert attendee, expressed the view that he overworked them and required Elizabeth to perform songs which were too difficult for her age. Elizabeth was under indenture to her father as a music apprentice, which ensured that her performances increased his earnings. To manage her image, her father carefully selected the venues where she could perform, to ensure that she sang at only high-society festivals and avoided the pitfalls of performing on the London stage. Among the venues he selected as her manager were his concerts in Bath and the Three Choirs Festival, which included tours at Gloucester Cathedral, Hereford Cathedral, and Worcester Cathedral, as well as performances in Cambridge, Chester, London, Oxford, and Salisbury. The tours were lavish events accompanied by social gatherings held apart from the concert appearance, wherein Elizabeth and the other performers were expected to entertain for several hours prior to each performance.

In selecting a repertoire to enhance Elizabeth's fame, her father eliminated popular songs, instead choosing regional ballads with "impeccable national pedigree" and classics, centred on Handel. Among her noted performances include the May 1768 performance as Galatea in Acis and Galatea, which then became a staple in her repertoire. Contemporary critics, such as Fanny Burney, Daniel Lyons and Gaspare Pacchierotti, noted that her voice with its clear, unaffected, sweet expression was particularly compatible with Handel's oratorial style. These same traits used to describe her voice were also attributed to her behaviour by the composer William Jackson, Charles Burney and others, adding to the public's admiration of Elizabeth, propelling her to be for a time the most celebrated singer in England, as well as the object of cult-like devotion by her admirers. Jackson, a composer from Exeter, Linley family friend, and author of Observations on the Present State of Music in London (1791) wrote music specifically for Elizabeth to perform.