Dorothea Jordan
| Dorothea Jordan | |
|---|---|
Mrs. Jordan in the Character of Hippolyta, painting by John Hoppner, first exhibited 1791 (previously in the National Gallery and Tate collections, now on loan to the National Portrait Gallery)
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| Born |
Dorothea Bland 22 November 1761 County Waterford, Ireland |
| Died | 5 July 1816 (aged 54) Saint-Cloud, France |
| Occupation | Actress and courtesan |
| Partner(s) | Richard Daly Charles Doyne Tate Wilkinson George Inchbald Richard Ford William IV of the United Kingdom |
| Children |
Frances Alsop Dorothea Maria March Lady Lucy Hester Hawker George FitzClarence, 1st Earl of Munster Henry FitzClarence Sophia Sidney, Baroness De L'Isle and Dudley Lady Mary Fox Lord Frederick FitzClarence Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll Lord Adolphus FitzClarence Lady Augusta Hallyburton Lord Augustus FitzClarence Amelia Cary, Viscountess Falkland |
Dorothea Jordan (22 November 1761 – 5 July 1816) was an Anglo-Irish actress, courtesan, and the mistress and companion of the future King William IV of the United Kingdom, for 20 years while he was Duke of Clarence. Together they had ten illegitimate children, all of whom took the surname FitzClarence.
Dorothea (sometimes called Dorothy or Dora) Bland was born near Waterford, Ireland, on 22 November 1761, and was baptised at St Martin in the Fields, Middlesex, on 5 December of that year. She was the third of six children born from Francis Bland (b. 1736 – d. Dover, 2 January 1778) and his mistress, Grace Phillips (b. ca. 1740 – d. Edinburgh, 1789). Her older siblings are George Bland (c. 1758 – Boston, Massachusetts, 1807; actor and singer) and Hester Bland (baptised at St Anne Soho, Middlesex, 2 March 1760 – buried at St David's, as of Trelethin, 8 March 1848), and her younger siblings are Lucy Bland (1763/64 – Trelethin, St David's, 1778, aged 14), Francis Bland (fl. 1813; a captain, unmarried and without issue) and Nathaniel Phillips Bland (born 1766/67 – buried at St David's, Pembrokeshire, 3 June 1830, aged 63).
Her paternal grandparents were Nathaniel Bland (Killarney, co. Kerry, 1695/96 – 1760), Vicar General of Ardfert and Aghada, and Judge of the Prerogative Court of Dublin, Ireland, and his second wife Lucy (née Heaton). The reports about Dorothea's maternal ancestry are very sketchy, although is generally stated that Grace Phillips was probably the daughter of a Welsh clergyman (who lived in the early 1750s in Bristol) but he has not been identified with certainty.
Before April 1774, when she was 13, Dorothea's father, who worked as a stagehand, abandoned the family to marry an Irish actress. However, he continued to support the family by sending them meagre sums of money. This situation forced Dorothea to work to help her siblings. Her mother, an actress by profession, saw potential in Dorothea and put her on the stage.
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