# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catley, Ann

​CATLEY, ANN (1745–1789), vocalist, born in 1745 near Tower Hill, London, was ​ the daughter of a hackney coachman, at one time in the service of the quaker Barclay, and afterwards keeper of the Horns public-house at Norwood. Remarkable for beauty of face and voice, as early as 1755 she amused the officers stationed at the Tower by her singing. About 1760, her voice having attracted the notice of William Bates, a west-end musician, he and her father entered into a bond for 200l. that he was to feed and clothe the girl, train her, and get her a public engagement (Thespian Dict.) In 1762 she appeared at Vauxhall, and on 8 Oct. sang the part of the Pastoral Nymph in ‘Comus’ at Covent Garden Theatre. Her beauty and the freedom of her manners quickly made her notorious; and in 1763 her father took process in the king's bench to force Bates to produce her in court, as it was rumoured that she had been basely handed over to a young baronet, Sir Francis Blake Delaval (Kirkman, Macklin, i. 450–1). Robert Barclay, her father's master, obtained legal assistance for him, and Delaval, Bates, and Delaval's attorney, Frayne, were fined by Lord Mansfield for conspiring to deprive Catley of the custody of his daughter.
Ann Catley obtained an engagement at Marylebone Gardens immediately afterwards, and became a pupil of Macklin. Under his auspices she obtained an engagement (1763) at Dublin, appearing at the Smock Alley Theatre with extraordinary success, at a salary of forty guineas per night (Thespian Dict.) O'Keeffe, the dramatist, writes of her popularity and beauty. The ladies of Dublin had their hair ‘Catleyfied,’ i.e. dressed as Miss Catley dressed hers. She did not return to England till 1770. Lucrative engagements followed rapidly. Her time was passed between Vauxhall, Marylebone Gardens, the theatres, and private concerts; her characters included Isabella in the ‘Portrait,’ Arnold's music; Rosetta in ‘Love in a Village,’ which kept a theatre prosperous for two years; and Captain Macheath. In 1770 and 1773 she appeared at Covent Garden (ib.), where Horace Walpole saw her in ‘Elfrida.’ On 6 Feb. 1773 she played Juno in O'Hara's ‘Golden Pippin,’ and took the town by storm with two songs, ‘Push about the jorum’ and ‘Where's the mortal can resist me?’ ‘For Miss Catley,’ Walpole says (Letters, Cunningham's ed. vi. 13), ‘she looked so impudent … you might have imagined she had been singing the “black joke,” only that she would then have been more intelligible.’ In 1773 were published some scandalous ‘Memoirs of the celebrated Miss Ann C——y, containing a succinct Narrative of the most remarkable Incidents of that Lady's Life,’ &c. (2 vols.). In 1777, in Wenman's volume of ‘Plays,’ article ‘Comus,’ there appeared a portrait of Ann Catley as Euphrosyne. In 1784 she made her last appearance in public (Thespian Dict.), and retired upon a considerable fortune. She had then become the wife of Major-general Francis Lascelles, by whom she was the mother of eight children, four sons and four daughters, the eldest son being old enough at her death to be a cornet of dragoons (Gent. Mag. 1789, vol. lix. pt. ii. p. 962). She and the general lived in a handsome house at Ealing, bought by herself for her daughters out of her own fortune, and she died there of decline on 14 Oct. 1789. From her will, signed Anne Cateley, though her death was recorded under the head of Mrs. Lascelles, it appears that her property amounted to 5,000l.
In ‘Notes and Queries’ (4th series, vi. 112; and vii. 41, 217) much curious matter is set down concerning the tune ‘Helmsley,’ said to have been originally a hornpipe danced by Ann Catley. Dr. Rimbault refers there to Miss Ambross's ‘Life and Memoirs of the late Miss Ann Catley, the celebrated actress; with Biographical Sketches of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, and the Hon. Isabella Pawlet, daughter of the Earl of Thanet.’ No copy of this work is in the British Museum.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 326; Thespian Dict. art. ‘Catley, Ann;’ Kirkman's Memoirs of Macklin, i. 448–53; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, vi. 314–15; Brief Narrative of … Miss C*tl*y, pp. 1, 20, 21, 38; Gent. Mag. vol. lix. pt. ii. pp. 962, 1049, 1050; O'Keeffe's Reminiscences (1826); Monthly Review, enlarged series, i. 581.]
J. H.