Born: 8 February 1779 or 1781, United Kingdom
Died: 16 July 1850
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Juliana Betterton
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Glover (Betterton), Julia (Juliana) (1779/81–1850), actress, was born 8 February in Newry, Co. Down, in either 1779 or 1781. Both her parents, Thomas Betterton, a native of Dublin, who changed his name from Butterton for professional reasons, and his wife, formerly a Mrs Palmer, were actors. After a period working in Crow Street theatre, Dublin, her father returned to Newry in 1783 and opened his own theatre on Hill Street. Julia was trained for the stage by her parents from a very early age, and may have joined them in productions in Newry. Betterton’s venture failed to make money and, having built up hefty debts by the winter of 1785, he fled with his family to Edinburgh, where they stayed for a year, and from there to York, where Julia may have appeared as Page in a production of Otway’s ‘The orphan’ alongside Tate Wilkinson.
The Bettertons returned to Newry in 1792, and were engaged by the new management in their former theatre. Julia made her first definite appearance as an actress there on 20 July 1792, when, for her benefit, she played the young Prince Arthur in ‘King John’. This was followed by engagements in Drogheda and Crow Street. Father and daughter continued to tour after the death of Julia’s mother in 1793, working in Waterford in March, Wexford in April, Kilkenny in June and July, and Galway, where they were employed until the end of October. She delivered primarily prologues, epilogues, recitations and entr’acte dances, and took boyish parts such as Captain Flash in ‘Miss in her teens’. Towards the end of the year they returned to Dublin, for appearances in the Capel Street theatre and subsequently in Crow Street.
On leaving Ireland in 1794, Julia performed extensively in Bristol and Bath, taking important roles such as Desdemona (opposite Henry Siddons as Othello) and Lady Macbeth. In 1797 she was engaged for five years on comfortable terms by Covent Garden, making her debut as Elwina in Hannah More’s ‘Percy’ on 12 October 1797. Throughout the ensuing season she received excellent roles, including Portia in ‘The merchant of Venice’ in a royal performance on 3 November. She also played Miranda in ‘The busy body’, Lady Surrey in ‘England preserv’d’ and Eleanor de Ferrars in the premiere of Cumberland’s ‘The eccentric lover’ on 30 April 1798. However, she did not become friends with the company’s leading ladies, Mrs Pope and Mrs Abington. She also took on leading parts in comedies, such as Maria in Thomas Dibdin’s ‘Five thousand a year’ in 1799.
After a five-year spell at Covent Garden, she was engaged by Drury Lane in 1802, where she made her debut on 21 October as Mrs Oakley in George Colman’s ‘The jealous wife’. The remainder of her lengthy career was dominated by these two theatres, though she interspersed work for Thomas Dibdin’s company at the Surrey theatre, the Strand, the Haymarket, the Queen’s and the Olympic. Good-humoured, quick-tempered, and at times bitingly sarcastic, she was considered one of the foremost comic actresses of her generation. Among her most popular roles were Estifania, Mrs Malaprop, Mrs Subtle, and Mrs Heidelberg. In her later years, by which time she was dubbed the ‘Mother of the Stage’, she appeared in a long line of roles portraying old maids, dowagers, nurses and peasant women.
She appears to have become overweight in middle age, and in 1813 was described as being ‘monstrously fat’ by the artist Charles Robert Leslie. For much of her working life she was plagued by her father, who treated her appallingly and took the greater part of her earnings. She had hoped to marry a fellow actor, James Biggs, but he died in 1798. In 1800 her father gave her over to Samuel Glover in exchange for a bond of £1,000, which was never paid. She and Glover married on 20 March 1800, though it was not until the following May that she appeared professionally as Mrs Glover. The marriage was extremely unhappy. He too sought to live off her earnings, but circumstances were difficult, as the couple had eight children to maintain. Only four survived into adulthood. Three of her daughters, Georgina, Phyllis (d. 1831) and Mary (d. 1860), all took to the stage, as did her son Edmund (1813?–1860), while William Howard (1819–75) became a composer and conductor. In 1817 her husband sought to gain custody of the children to obtain her salary, but he failed and is said to have died in debt, in the Marshalsea prison. Despite grave illness, she made her farewell appearance, as Mrs Malaprop, at Drury Lane on 12 July 1850. She died four days later, and was buried in the church of St George the Martyr, Bloomsbury. Many likenesses of her were made, and her portrait (in pastels) by Samuel Drummond is at the Garrick Club, and another, by George Clint (exhibited at the RA in 1831), is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
GLOVER, JULIA, The maiden name of this lady was Betterton; she was born in 1780, in the town of Newry, Ireland, where her father was the manager of a small provincial company. Her career as an actress extends over a period of half a century, and presents many interesting facts for the biographer, associated as it is with that of Mrs. Siddons, the Kembles, and all the theatrical notabilities of that histrionic era. At the age of ten. Miss Betterton was considered a kind of infant phenomenon; and at fifteen we find her taking such difficult characters as Miss Hoyde, Lydia Languish, Julia, and Imogen, with signal success. In 1797, she appeared on the Drury Lane stage, as Elwyna, in Hannah More’s “Percy;” and from that time until quite recently, when she took her farewell at the same theatre, she has maintained her position as one of the most popular of English actresses. She has shone almost equally in tragedy and comedy, but her efforts in the latter line have been generally considered as most successful.
In 1800, Miss Betterton married Mr. Samuel Glover, who was supposed to be heir to a large fortune, but this proved a fallacy; he was an idle and dissolute man, and his extravagance and unkindness rendered a separation necessary. Mrs. Glover has had the sole charge of rearing and educating her eight children, and has performed her maternal duties in an exemplary manner. One of her sons is distinguished as a popular musical composer, and another is a clever tragedian, as well as a good amateur painter; her daughter Phyllis came out at the Haymarket, and gave great promise, but she died young. “Looking back,” says a contemporary reviewer, “upon Mrs. Glover’s long and brilliant career on the stage, we may pronounce her one of the most extraordinary women and accomplished actresses that ever graced the profession of the drama.”
The following is excerpted from the Dictionary of National Biography, originally published between 1885 and 1900, by Smith, Elder & Co. It was written by John Joseph Knight.
GLOVER, Mrs. JULIA (1779–1850), actress, was born in Newry 8 Jan. 1779. Her father, an actor named Betterton or Butterton, is said to have claimed descent from Thomas Betterton [q. v.] About 1789 she joined with her father the York circuit, and appeared under Tate Wilkinson as the Page in the ‘Orphan.’ She is said, like Mrs. Davison [q. v.], to have played the Duke of York to the Richard III of George Frederick Cooke [q. v.] She also acted Tom Thumb to the Glumdalca of the same actor. After accompanying her father on country tours, she made her first appearance at Bath, 3 Oct. 1795, as Miss Betterton from Liverpool, playing Marianne in the ‘Dramatist’ by Reynolds. In the course of this and the following season she enacted Desdemona to the Othello of H. Siddons, Lady Macbeth, Lady Amaranth in ‘Wild Oats,’ and many other important characters in tragedy and comedy. On 12 Oct. 1797 she appeared at Covent Garden as Elwina in Hannah More’s ‘Percy.’ Her engagement was for five years, at terms then considered high, rising from 15l. to 20l. a week, her father being also engaged. Mrs. Abington, to whom she bore a marked resemblance, Mrs. Crawford, and Mrs. Pope were opposed to her. Her second appearance as Charlotte Rusport in the ‘West Indian’ pleased the author (Cumberland) so much that he gave her the part of the heroine, Emily Fitzallan, in his new play, ‘False Impressions,’ 23 Nov. 1797. She was the original Maria in T. Dibdin’s ‘Five Thousand a Year,’ 16 March 1799, and was the heroine of other plays. She then played Lydia Languish, Lady Amaranth, and other comic parts. Under pressure from the management, which preferred Mrs. H. Johnstone in her parts, she took serious characters, such as Lady Randolph, the Queen in ‘Richard III,’ &c., for which she was less suited. She contracted an affection for James Biggs, an actor at Drury Lane, whom she had met at Bath. After his death (December 1798) her father, who took her salary and treated her with exceptional brutality, sold her for a consideration, never paid, of 1,000l. to Samuel Glover, the supposed heir to a large fortune. She was married 20 March 1800, and on the 27th played Letitia Hardy as ‘the late Miss Betterton.’ On 10 May she was announced as Mrs. Glover, late Miss Betterton. Towards the end of the season 1800-1 she reappeared, though she did not often perform. On 21 Oct. 1802, as Mrs. Oakly in the ‘Jealous Wife,’ she made her first appearance at Drury Lane. Next season she was again at Covent Garden, where she remained for four years. On 28 Sept. 1810 she appeared for the first time at the Lyceum, playing with the Drury Lane company, driven from their home by fire. With them she returned (1812-13) to the newly erected house in Drury Lane. She was, 23 Jan. 1813, the original Alhadra in Coleridge’s ‘Remorse.’ On 12 Feb. 1814 she was the Queen in ‘Richard III’ to Kean’s Richard, and on 5 May Emilia to his Othello. On 16 Sept. 1816, on the first appearance of Macready at Covent Garden, she played Andromache—her first appearance there for ten years—to Macready’s Orestes. She then played with Thomas Dibdin [q. v.] at the Surrey in 1822, and again returned to Drury Lane. When, 27 Oct. 1829, at Drury Lane, she played Mrs. Subtle in ‘Paul Pry,’ it was announced as her first appearance there for five years. The last chronicle of Genest concerning her is her original performance, 13 Sept. 1830, at the Haymarket, of Ariette Delorme in ‘Ambition, or Marie Mignot.’ Her Mrs. Simpson, in ‘Simpson & Co.,’ 4 Jan. 1823, was one of the most successful of her original parts; Estifania, Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Heidelberg, and Mrs. Subtle were also characters in which her admirable vein of comedy and her joyous laugh won high recognition. After seceding from Webster’s management of the Haymarket, she engaged with James Anderson in his direction of Drury Lane. Subsequently she joined William Farren [q. v.] at the Strand, where she went through a round of her best characters, including Widow Green in the ‘Love Chase’ of Sheridan Knowles, of which, at the Haymarket in 1837, she was the original exponent. What was called a professional farewell took place at her benefit at Drury Lane, Friday, 12 July 1850, when she played for the last time as Mrs. Malaprop. She had been ill for weeks, and was scarcely able to speak. On the following Tuesday she died. On Friday the 19th she was buried near her father in the churchyard of St. George the Martyr, in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. She had in 1837 two sons and two daughters living. Her sons, Edmund and William Howard, are separately, noticed. On 29 April 1822 a daughter made her first appearance at Drury Lane as Juliet to the Romeo of Kean, when Mrs. Glover was the Nurse. A writer in the ‘New Monthly Magazine’ (probably Talfourd) says ‘that sometimes her mother, in her anxiety, forgot a disguise extremely difficult for her rich and hearty humour to assume’ (vi. 250). Mrs. Glover was very unhappy in her domestic relations. Her father preyed upon her until he died, aged over eighty. Her husband did the same for a time, but failed in a dishonouring proceeding he brought against her. Mrs. Glover was plump in figure, and in the end corpulent. Leslie, in his ‘Autobiography,’ speaks of her as ‘monstrously fat.’ She was fair in complexion, and of middle height. She was the first comic actress of the period of her middle life, and had a wonderful memory. Benjamin Webster speaks of her reciting scene after scene verbatim from Hannah More’s ‘Percy’ after it had been withdrawn from the stage thirty years. ‘The Stage’ (1814-15, i. 162) says: ‘Mrs. Glover is indeed a violent actress; it is too much to say that she is a coarse one.’ She is generally credited, however, with refinement and distinction, and in her closing days was called the ‘Mother of the Stage.’ Boaden, in 1833, declared her the ablest actress in existence. She once, according to Walter Donaldson, played in 1822 at the Lyceum Hamlet for her benefit (Recollections of an Actor, p. 137). The same authority (p. 138) says her brother, John Betterton, was a good actor and dancer.