Born: 21 December 1808, United Kingdom
Died: 4 January 1870
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Maria Macarthy
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Bridget Hourican. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Honner, Maria (1808–70), actress, was born Maria Macarthy on 21 December 1808 in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, daughter of Eugene Macarthy (1788–1866), actor and manager. Educated in Cork, she lost her mother (name unknown) at a young age and made an early debut, at the age of 15, on the stage at a theatre in the south of Ireland. She afterwards played in Dublin, where she attracted the notice of Charles Kean and W. C. Macready. This was followed by an engagement in Scotland, and in 1831 she was taken on by John Farrell for the Pavilion Theatre, London, where for two seasons she was the star attraction. Two years later she moved to the Coburg Theatre and then to Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where Robert William Honner (1809–52) was the manager. She married Honner on 21 May 1836 and acted with him at the Surrey Theatre until 1838, when he became lessee of Sadler’s Wells, where they performed together for about five years. Known for her rendering of Shakespearean roles, she also had a talent for ‘pathetic’ parts such as Clemency in Dickens’s ‘Battle of life’, and in Sadler’s Wells she appeared in male roles such as Jack Sheppard and Roderic. From 1843 to 1845 she was at the Surrey Theatre, after which she went to the City of London Theatre. She died of paralysis on 4 January 1870 at the residence of her second husband, Frederick Morton, stage manager of the Charing Cross Theatre. There are five drawings of her in Finsbury central library, London.