Charlotte Melmoth

Charlotte Melmoth
Mrs Charlotte Melmoth as 'Roxana' in "The Rival Queens"
Born	Not known 1749?
Died	1823 Brooklyn
Occupation	Actress, Teacher
Language	English, Irish
Nationality	English
Partner	Samuel Jackson Pratt (17??-1781; separated)

Mrs Charlotte Melmoth (c. 1749 – 1823) was an 18th-century English actress, the estranged 'wife' of British actor/writer Samuel Jackson Pratt ("Courtney Melmoth"), and known as "The Grande Dame of Tragedy on the Early American Stage" After a mildly-successful stage career in Great Britain and Ireland she emigrated to America in 1793 and became one of the best-known actresses of the late 18th/early 19th century.

Little is known of Charlotte's early years; she may have been an English farmer's daughter. Her real name is uncertain. She first came to the attention of the British public in the late 18th century, as "Mrs Courtney Melmoth" part of an acting duo with her supposed husband, Samuel Jackson Pratt who used the stage name "Courtney Melmoth". It is not known whether she adopted her husband's stage-surname "Melmoth" or, as has been speculated, "Melmoth" was her real surname and Pratt adopted it as his own stage name.

Most biographers give her year of birth as 1749, the same as Pratt's. However this would put her in her twenties in the early 1770s, when she first met Pratt, in contradiction of another biographer's claim that she was still at school when this meeting occurred.

Some time in the early 1770s, she entered into a marital-like relationship with a clergyman, Samuel Jackson Pratt, who, as a result of the scandal, left the church to pursue an ultimately unsuccessful acting career and who eventually became a well-known writer. According to A History of The City of Brooklyn, Charlotte "had been duped into a sham marriage, while at boarding school, by a Mr. Pratt (known in the literary and theatrical circles of that day as Courtney Melmoth), and with him went upon the stage, playing in several companies both in England and Ireland." Pratt's parents strongly disapproved of the relationship and it is not known whether or not the marriage was ever legally formalised. The couple toured together in theatrical productions, not always successfully, and sometimes had to resort to telling fortunes to make their living. In 1773 the couple opened a theatre in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. The venture was not successful and the theatre failed within three months, whereupon the couple moved to London, where Charlotte began to achieve success as an actress, both at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. From 1776–1779 the couple played seasons in Edinburgh, London and Birmimgham.