Sarah Baker (18th-century actress)
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1736 or 1737
Sarah Baker | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sarah Wakelin 1736 or 1737 Milton, Kent, England |
| Died | 20 February 1816 Rochester, Kent |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse |
Thomas Baker (m. 1760–1769) |
Sarah Baker (1736/1737 – 20 February 1816) was an English actress and theatre manager of the late Georgian era whose career in Kent lasted more than 50 years. Despite her being illiterate and facing fierce opposition from male rivals, her business acumen led her to becoming one of the most successful self-made women of her time.[1][2]
Baker was born Sarah Wakelin in about 1736/1737,[3] in Milton, Kent[4] to Ann Wakelin née Clark (d. 1787), an acrobatic dancer and troupe manager. Ann's business, "Mrs. Wakelin's Company", performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre; Baker's father, James Wakelin (1716–1779), was an actor of minor parts at the Theatre Royal Haymarket who later opened a bookshop in Shoe Lane from where he sold religious books and tracts.[5] With her sister Mary, Baker performed as a dancer in her mother's company at Sadler's Wells and then went on tour to Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Bristol. Baker also performed as a puppeteer, and her mother's company was regularly fined at Stourbridge Fair at Cambridge[6] between 1762 and 1777 for offering performances which included rope-dancing and slack wire acts, puppet shows and pantomime.[3][7]
Marriage
She married Thomas Baker (1735–1769) on 6 January 1760 in Finsbury, London. He was an acrobat in the Wakelin troupe who may have been the well-known clown-tumbler Polander;[3] he died in 1769 leaving Baker with three young children to raise: Anne Baker (1761–1817);[8] Henry Baker (1765–), and Sally "Sarah" Baker (1769–1817). To support her young family, from 1772 to 1777 Baker managed her mother's Sadler's Wells company featuring "rope-dancing, tumbling, musical interludes, burlettas, and all the clothes, scenery and machinery 'entirely new'".[7][9] As she had been steeped in performing all her life Baker totally immersed herself in her new role, undertaking most tasks herself:
"When Mrs. Baker (who had many years previously only employed actors and actresses of cherry-wood, holly, oak, or ebony, and dressed and undressed both the ladies and gentlemen herself), first engaged a living company, she not only used to beat the drum behind the scenes, in Richard, and other martial plays, but was occasionally her own prompter."[10]
Baker's company toured all over Kent, including: Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, Faversham and Tunbridge Wells in addition to occasional visits to Folkestone, Deal, Sandwich, Lewes and Sittingbourne. Her acting company included various family members such as her mother, Mrs. Ann Wakelin; her sister Mary, her three children and her cousins, the Irelands, various of whom were also musicians with the company. To vary the bill Baker also hired successful and popular entertainers including the clown Lewy Owen. A playbill from the 1770s for the Bartholomew Fair states that Mrs. Baker's Company will appear at the Greyhound Yard Theatre where they will perform Charles Dibdin's 1774 ballad opera The Waterman, with Lewy Owen as Robin and Miss Wakelin as Wilhelmina. The afterpiece was Harlequin's Whim, or, The Merry Medly in which Miss Sarah Baker appeared as Columbine.[3][7] On returning to the Greyhound in 1780 Mrs. Baker's company presented The Quaker followed by the pantomime Harlequin Wanderer; or, the Great Turk Outwitted with Miss Wakelin as Columbine, Lewy Owen as Clown and Miss Sarah Baker as a maid.[11]
