Lavinia Fenton

Lavinia Paulet, Duchess of Bolton (1708 - 24 January 1760), known by her stagename as Lavina Fenton, was an English actress.

She was probably the daughter of a naval lieutenant named Beswick, but she bore the name of her mother's husband. She was thought to have been born in Charring Cross, and had been a child prostitute before becoming an actress. Her first appearance was as Monimia in Thomas Otway's "The Orphan", in 1726 at the Haymarket Theatre. She then joined the company of players at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where her success and beauty made her the toast of the beaux. It was in John Gay's "Beggar's Opera", as Polly Peachum, that Miss Fenton made her greatest success. Her pictures were in great demand, verses were written to her and books published about her, and she was the most talked-of person in London. Hogarth's picture shows her in one of the scenes, with the Duke of Bolton in a box.

After appearing in several comedies, and then in numerous repetitions of the "Beggars Opera", she ran away with her lover Charles Paulet, 3rd Duke of Bolton, a man much older than herself, who, after the death of his wife in 1751, married her. Their three children all died young. The duchess survived her husband and died in 1760 at Westcombe House in Greenwich, being buried in St Alfege's Church, Greenwich [ [http://www.greenwich-guide.org.uk/january.htm#29 Greenwich Guide - Greenwich Day by Day - January 29] on 3 February 1760. [From: 'Greenwich', The Environs of London: volume 4: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent (1796), pp. 426-93. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=45486&strquery=Woodlands%20Blackheath. Date accessed: 24 September 2007.]

References

*1911