Life
1711-1785 [née Rafter; var. Raftor; called Kitty]; dg. Kilkenny
lawyer who forfeited estates in 1690, fled to France, and moved later
to London; ‘used to run after Robt. Wilkes in the street’ as
a young girl (Chetwood); reputedly discovered by Colley Cibber singing
on doorstep of Drury Lane Beefsteak Club; employed at Drury Lane, 1728-41
[var. 1742]; enjoyed great success in high-spirited comic roles; briefly
m. to a barrister called Clive and separated within the year 1733; travestied
part of Portia, 1741; played Dublin season in 1741; admired by Dr. Johnson
and Handel; sang Handel’s Samson, 1742 [?in Dublin]; taken
on by Garrick at Drury Lane, 1746-69; pensioned by Walpole, near whose
home Strawberry Hill she lived thereafter in a house called Cliveden;
also wrote four comic sketches incl. The Rehearsal (1753), and The Faithful Irishwoman (1765), unpublished; admired by Farquhar
and Johnson; d. 6. Dec. OCEL, ‘renowned for her red face and vulgar
good nature’; renowned for freedom from scandal; retired from stage
to ‘Clivenden’ near her friend Horace Walpole, 1768, acting
as his hostess; defence of her character issued as The Case of Mrs
Clive (1744); there is a life by Percy Fitzgerald (1888); her unprinted
plays are held in the Larpent Collection. ODNB GBI DIB DIW OCEL OCIL
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Works
Plays, The Rehearsal or Boys in Petticoats, burl. (Drury
Lane, 15 March 1750), printed 1753; Every Woman in her Humour,
farce (Drury Lane, 20 Mar 1760), Larpent Coll.; The Island of Slaves,
farce (Drury Lane, 26 Mar 1761) Larpent Coll.; The Sketch of a Fine
Lady’s Return from a Rout, farce (Drury Lane, 21 March 1763),
Larpent Coll.; The Faithful Irishwoman (Drury Lane, 18 March 1765),
Larpent Coll. Also, The Connaught Wife and Teague’s Rambles
in London (Haymarket 1770).
Autobiography, The Case of Mrs. Clive (1744; rep. edn., Augustan Reprints q.d.); also Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, ed., The life of Mrs. Catherine Clive: with an account of her adventures on and off the stage, a round of her characters, together with her correspondence. (London: A. Reader 1888, facs. rep. New York: B. Blom 1971), viii, 112pp.
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References
Dictionary of National Biography:
née. Raftor; employed by Colley Cibber at Drury Lane 1728-42; sang
in Handel’s Samson in Dublin; d. 1785.
Harry Boylan, Dictionary of Irish Biography (1988) holds that she was born in Ulster, but this is unlikely if her father fled to France after the Battle of the Boyne (see Romance of the Irish Stage, J. Fitzgerald Molloy, i, p.101).
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