# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cornelys, Theresa

​CORNELYS, THERESA (1723–1797), of Carlisle House, Soho Square, born at Venice in 1723, was the daughter of an actor named Imer. At the age of seventeen she became the mistress of the senator Malipiero, and thirteen years later held the same relation to the margrave of Baireuth, at that time being married to a dancer of the name of Pompeati. For a time she had the direction of all the theatres in the Austrian Netherlands. When at Amsterdam as a singer she was known as Mme. Trenti, and took the name of Cornelis (or Cornelys) from that of a gentleman at Amsterdam, M. Cornelis de Rigerboos. As Mme. Pompeati she sang in Gluck's opera, ‘La Caduta de' Giganti,’ at the Haymarket, 7 Jan. 1746, and ‘though nominally second woman, had such a masculine and violent manner of singing that few female symptoms were perceptible’ (Burney, History of Music, iv. 453). Casanova speaks of her as being at Venice in 1753. On 26 Feb. 1761 she was advertised, as Madame Pompeati, to take part at the ‘Music Room in Dean Street,’ for the benefit of a Signor Siprutini, and again on 29 Feb. 1764 at the chapel of the Lock Hospital in Dr. Arne's oratorio of ‘Judith.’ In 1760 Mrs. Cornelys purchased Carlisle House in Soho Square, and first figured as a manager of public assemblies. The two houses Nos. 21A and 21B on the east side of the square, at the corner of Sutton Street, stand upon the site of the mansion, which was built by Charles Howard, third earl of Carlisle, between 1686 and 1690. The third and fourth meetings of ‘The Society,’ as the ladies and gentlemen who subscribed to the balls organised by Mrs. Cor​nelys called themselves, are noticed in the ‘Public Advertiser,’ 30 Dec. 1760 and 15 Jan. 1761. She showed herself well versed in the art of advertising. In February 1763 she gave a ball ‘to the upper servants of persons of fashion, as a token of the sense she had of obligations to the nobility and gentry, for their generous subscription to her assembly.’ The assembly-rooms became highly successful, and the eleventh meeting was advertised to take place on 5 May 1763. She endeavoured to preserve orderly and respectable behaviour by appropriate regulations. On Friday, 24 Feb. 1764, she first added to the inducement of a ball a ‘grand concert of vocal and instrumental music,’ and on 6 April of the same year it was announced to the ‘subscribers to the society in Soho Square that the first meeting for the morning subscription music will be held this day.’ She became involved in quarrels, and appears to have been threatened with the terrors of the Alien Act. This did not prevent her from enlarging and redecorating her apartments. ‘But,’ says Walpole, writing to George Montagu, 16 Dec. 1764, ‘Almack's room [opened February 1765], which is to be ninety feet long, proposes to swallow up both hers, as easily as Moses's rod gobbled down those of the magicians’ (Cunningham's ed. iv. 302). Bach and Abel directed her concerts in 1766, and the ‘society nights’ were so well attended that she was obliged to make a new door in Soho Square. In April 1768 her assembly included some of the royal family and the Prince of Monaco, and in the following August the King of Denmark and suite visited Carlisle House. A gallery for the dancing of ‘cotillons’ and ‘allemandes’ and a new range of rooms were opened in January 1769, and in the same year there was a festival and grand concert, under the direction of Guadagni, on 6 June, with illuminations, in honour of the king's birthday. This was the most flourishing period of Carlisle House. At a masked ball, given on 27 Feb. 1770, by the gentlemen of the ‘Tuesday Night's Club,’ the Duke of Gloucester and half the peerage were present. Miss Monckton, afterwards known as ‘Old Lady Cork,’ appeared in the character of an Indian sultana, wearing 30,000l. worth of jewellery. With a view to future opposition, a portion of the profits of the first harmonic meeting, in 1771, was devoted to the poor of the parish. The proprietors of the Italian Opera House considered the ‘harmonic meetings’ an infringement of their privileges and as forming a dangerous rival to their attractions. She and the other organisers were fined at Bow Street, and an indictment brought before the grand jury 24 Feb. 1771 for keeping ‘a common disorderly house.’ The opening of the Pantheon and the institution of ‘The Coterie,’ by certain of the members of ‘The Society of Carlisle House,’ were also fatal blows. The list of bankrupts of the ‘London Gazette’ (November 1772) includes the name of ‘Teresa Cornelys, dealer,’ and the following month Carlisle House and its contents were advertised to be sold by auction, by order of the assignees. Goldsmith's ‘Threnodia Augustalis’ for the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, with music by Vento, was given at the rooms 20 Feb. 1772. In 1774 Mrs. Cornelys kept an hotel at Southampton; and on 20 June 1775 a grand regatta took place on the Thames, on which occasion a fête was given at Ranelagh. Mrs. Cornelys had the sole management of the decorations and supper, for which she was allowed seven hundred guineas (MALCOLM, London during the Eighteenth Century, 1808, 416–18). A Mrs. Cornelys acted in various Irish theatres between 1774 and 1781, but it is doubtful whether she can be identified with Theresa Cornelys, who was able in 1776 to reobtain temporary possession of Carlisle House. She appears to have had no further connection with Carlisle House after that date. It was pulled down in 1788 and the present houses built on the site. St. Patrick's (Roman catholic) Chapel (consecrated 1792) in Sutton Street was the old banqueting- or ball-room; the entrance for carriages and chairs was at the end of the chapel, in what is now Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell's cooperage yard. A ‘Chinese bridge’ connected the house in the square with the banqueting-room.
The notorious ‘White House,’ also in Soho Square, has frequently been confused with Carlisle House. ‘She has been the Heidegger of the age, and presided over our diversions,’ says Walpole; she ‘drew in both righteous and ungodly … and made her house a fairy palace for balls, concerts, and masquerades’ (Letter to Sir H. Mann, 22 Feb. 1771, Cunningham's ed. v. 283). Casanova, who saw her in prosperous days, refers to her as possessing a country house at Hammersmith, and, ‘outre les immeubles, trois secrétaires, trente-deux domestiques, six chevaux, une meute et une dame de compagnie’ (Mémoires, v. 426). A contemporary caricature, ‘Lady Fashion's Secretary's Office, a Peticoat recommendation the best,’ represents her as a dignified-looking, middle-aged dame, with somewhat marked features.
She remained in obscurity many years under the name of Mrs. Smith. Some time before her death she was a seller of asses' milk at Knightsbridge, and tried to get up a ​series of public breakfasts under royal patronage. This final effort had no success, and she died in the Fleet Prison 19 Aug. 1797, at the age of seventy-four (Gent. Mag. 1797, pt. ii. p. 890). She had a son and a daughter. The former, ‘le petit Aranda’ of Casanova, took the name of Altorf, and was tutor for some years to ‘the late Earl of Pomfret, who … held him in esteem for his talents, attainments, and moral character’ (J. Taylor, Records of my Life, i. 266). He died before his mother, for whom he had provided during his life. Sophie, the daughter, was highly educated at the Roman catholic nunnery at Hammersmith. ‘An artful hypocrite’ (ib. i. 271), she gave out, after her mother's fall, that she was of noble parentage. Casanova, on the other hand, claims the paternity. Charles Butler made her an allowance, and she subsequently lived with the Duchess of Newcastle in Lincolnshire, and with Lady Spencer (who left her an annuity) at Richmond. She took the name of Miss Williams, and was employed by the Princess Augusta as a kind of almoner.
[Newspaper cuttings and manuscript materials brought together by the late Dr. E. F. Rimbault for a History of Soho, and obligingly lent by Messrs. Dulau & Co. These collections were also used in the privately printed pamphlet, Mrs. Cornelys' Entertainments at Carlisle House [by T. Mackinlay, of Dalmaine & Co., 1840]. The facts for the early career of Mrs. Cornelys are given by Casanova, of unsavoury memory. The statements made in his Mémoires respecting her (see Brussels edition, 1881, i. 72, 130, ii. 305–6, iii. 311–21, 322–51, v. 426, &c.) are corroborated by notices derived from other sources. Thus some remarkable and hitherto unnoticed proofs of Casanova's veracity are furnished in addition to those supplied by F. W. Barthold, Die geschichtlichen Persönlichkeiten in J. Casanova's Memoiren, Berlin, 1846.]
H. R. T.