{{Short description|British actress and singer (1746–1826)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = Isabella Mattocks | image = Isabella Mattocks by Gainsborough Dupont.jpg | caption = Isabella Mattocks by Gainsborough Dupont 1833 | birth_name = Isabella Hallam | birth_date = 1746 | birth_place = Whitechapel | death_date = June 25, 1826 | death_place = Kensington | death_cause = | footnotes = }} '''Isabella Mattocks''' (1746 – June 25, 1826) was a British actress and singer.
==Early life== Hallam (later Mattocks) was baptised in Whitechapel in 1746 by Lewis and Sarah Hallam. Her father and her uncle William were also actors.<ref>Jared Brown, ‘Hallam, Lewis (1714?–1756?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64342, accessed 7 Feb 2015]</ref> Her grandfather Thomas Hallam had been part of the Drury Lane company when he was killed in a dispute with fellow actor Charles Macklin during a performance. When her parents and William decided to try acting in America in 1752<ref>{{Citation |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64342 |work=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |pages=ref:odnb/64342 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-04-01 |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/64342 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.|url-access=subscription }}</ref> they took three of Isabella's siblings, but she was left in the care of her aunt, Ann, and her husband John Barrington in England.<ref name=cab>{{cite book|title=The Cabinet: Or, Monthly Report of Polite Literature, Volume 4|date=1808|page=60|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UyYTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA60|accessdate=7 February 2015}}</ref>
In 1762 she made her debut in the adult role of Juliet. For most of her childhood except for a few years at school she played small parts in the productions of the Covent Garden company of actors. When she was sixteen she joined the company and in 1765 she married her leading man George Mattocks. Hallam's guardians who she said treated her like true parents opposed the match for reasons that are not certain.<ref name=odnb>Olive Baldwin, Thelma Wilson, ‘Mattocks, Isabella (1746–1826)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2013 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18350, accessed 7 Feb 2015]</ref>
==Career== In 1767 she appeared in a revival of ''Double Falsehood'' which is a play that claims links to William Shakespeare.<ref name=ham>{{cite book|last1=Hammond|first1=[William Shakespeare]; edited by Brean|title=Double falsehood or The distressed lovers|date=2010|publisher=A & C Black|location=London|isbn=978-1903436776|edition=3rd}}</ref>
The couple would appear together taking leading roles although Isabella was considered too short for some roles. By the time younger actresses were competing for her roles she was established as a character actor. She was believed to have had an affair with Robert Bensley but her marriage to George survived.
She was known for performing epilogues and these were sometimes written for her by the politician and playwright Miles Peter Andrews. Mattocks was to remain with the Covent garden acting company for 46 years. Thomas Dibdin noted that her last part was on 7 June 1808, noting how long she had amused her audiences.<ref name=dibdin>{{cite book|last1=Dibdin|first1=Thomas|title=The Reminiscences of Thomas Dibdin, of the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, Volume 1|date=1827|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cOQ5AAAAcAAJ}}</ref> She only daughter who married Nathaniel Huson in 1801. Huson was a barrister who swindled Mattocks out of £6000. However a benefit was staged for her and this replaced over £1000 of what had been lost.
Mattocks died in Kensington in 1826.<ref name="odnb"/>
==Selected roles== [[file:Isabella Mattocks in the Road to Ruin.jpg|thumb|right|Mattocks as ''Mrs Warren'' in <br> Holcroft's ''The Road to Ruin'']] * Lucinde in ''Love in a Village'' by Isaac Bickerstaffe (1762) * Emily in ''The Double Mistake'' by Elizabeth Griffith (1766) * Lucy in ''The Oxonian in Town'' by George Colman the Elder (1767) * Olivia in ''The Good-Natur'd Man'' by Oliver Goldsmith (1768) * Aspasia in ''Cyrus'' by John Hoole (1768) * Lucy Waters in ''The Brothers'' by Richard Cumberland (1769) * Donna Louisa in ''The Duenna'' by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1775) * Daraxa in ''Edward and Eleonora'' by James Thomson (1775) * Lady Racket in ''Three Weeks After Marriage'' by Arthur Murphy (1776) * Lady Bell in ''Know Your Own Mind'' by Arthur Murphy (1777) * Mrs Racket in ''The Belle's Stratagem'' by Hannah Cowley (1780) * Mrs Sparwell in ''The World as it Goes'' by Hannah Cowley (1781) * Sophy Pendragon in ''Which is the Man?'' by Hannah Cowley (1782) * Olivia in ''A Bold Stroke for a Husband'' by Hannah Cowley (1783) * Lady Tremor in ''Such Things Are'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1787) * Flora in ''The Midnight Hour'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1787) * Lisette in ''Animal Magnetism'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1788) * Lady Bonton in ''The Ton'' by Eglantine Wallace (1788) * Marchoiness Merida in ''The Child of Nature'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1788) * Mrs Wordly in ''The School for Widows'' by Richard Cumberland (1789) * Adelaide in ''The German Hotel'' by Thomas Holcroft (1790) * Lady Peckham in ''The School for Arrogance'' by Thomas Holcroft (1791) * Lauretta in ''A Day in Turkey'' by Hannah Cowley (1791) * Louisa in ''The Irishman in London'' by William Macready the Elder (1792) * Mrs Warren in ''The Road to Ruin'' by Thomas Holcroft (1792) * Mrs Placid in ''Everyone Has His Fault'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1793) * Lady Sarah Savage in ''The Rage'' by Frederick Reynolds (1794) * Mrs Fancourt in ''The Town Before You'' by Hannah Cowley (1794) * Mrs Allbut in ''The World in a Village'' by John O'Keeffe (1793) * Nanette in ''Love's Frailties'' by Thomas Holcroft (1794) * Mrs Bloomfield in ''The Bank Note'' by William Macready the Elder (1795) * Mrs Sarsnet in ''The Deserted Daughter'' by Thomas Holcroft (1795) * Clementina Allspice in ''The Way to Get Married'' by Thomas Morton (1796) * Miss Union in ''Fortune's Fool'' by Frederick Reynolds (1796) * Mrs Auberne in ''The Doldrum'' by John O'Keeffe (1796) * Miss Vortex in ''A Cure for the Heart Ache'' by Thomas Morton (1797) * Lady Mary Raffle in ''Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1797) * Mrs Gloomly in ''Laugh When You Can'' by Frederick Reynolds (1798) * Lady Vibrate in ''He's Much to Blame'' by Thomas Holcroft (1798) * Sally in ''Secrets Worth Knowing'' by Thomas Morton (1798) * Fidelia in ''The Eccentric Lover'' by Richard Cumberland (1798) * Lady Maxim in ''Five Thousand a Year'' by Thomas John Dibdin (1799) * Rachel Starch in ''The Wise Man of the East'' by Elizabeth Inchbald (1799) * Lucretia Mactab in ''The Poor Gentleman'' by George Colman (1801) * Mrs Sapling in ''Delays and Blunders'' by Frederick Reynolds (1802) * Camilla in ''Rugantino'' by Matthew Lewis (1805) * Mrs Glastonbury in ''Who Wants a Guinea?'' by George Colman the Younger (1805) * Mrs Trot in ''Town and Country'' by Thomas Morton (1807)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Commons category-inline|Isabella Mattocks}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mattocks, Isabella}} Category:1746 births Category:1826 deaths Category:Actors from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Category:18th-century British actresses Category:19th-century English actresses Category:19th-century British actresses Category:People from Whitechapel