Biography of Elizabeth Macauley
By Lauren Nicolle
Elizabeth Wright Macauley is a poet, writer, actress and lecturer born in York, England in 1785. Her early years were spent as actress, performing in small theatrical presentations where she was poorly paid and failed to achieve much acknowledgment for her efforts. She made the transition from actress to writer when, after twenty years of acting, she gave up her career on stage to instead begin publishing pieces of her writing - often designed in criticism of her male colleagues and the proprietors of the various theatres she had worked in. Her signature dramatic style and passionate views turned her to write and deliver speeches that eventually evolved into Jacobinical sermons, and later into lectures in support of the Owenism movement. She eventually fell into debt and was placed in prison, from where she published her autobiography, before passing away of a stroke on a lecture tour in York in 1837.
Much if not most of what is known about Elizabeth Macauley’s early life derives from her “Autobiographical Memoirs” beginning with the separation from her sister Mary, who was moved to Park Hall, the house of her mother’s family, after her father Samuel Roe’s third marriage. Macauley, who was at the time Elizabeth Wright, was then herself sent to the house of her grandfather and placed under the care of a “dame Bridget” (Macauley, 29) under whom “her education was totally neglected” (30) in favour of focusing on “a thorough knowledge of household arrangements and a thorough capability of household drudgery.” She expressed, however, the desire to read and write, and having proved herself to be “rather adept in music” (31), claimed to have taught herself to write for the purpose of transcribing hymns of her own composition at a mere seven years of age. Macauley also claims she “acquired considerable reputation in [her] small native town by [her] skill in reading the scriptures,” which she was “enabled to read with accuracy long before [she] could speak plain”. Eventually, Elizabeth went to live with the Countess of Cunningham, with whom she spent seven years “midst unnumerable turmoils” (39) in the service of “this irritable lady” until she married “a youth from the country, the orphan son of a farmer” (41) who was “her inferior in all respects” and “totally unsettled in life… without the means of providing either for her or himself” (43). Upon his death and aged only nineteen, on the “3rd of October, 1803” (15) Elizabeth, now Elizabeth Macauley, relocated herself to Farnham, in Kent, in the hopes of becoming an actress.
Macauley’s acting career was, over the course of twenty years, peppered with difficulties, resulting in her going “from one low-paid and badly reviewed theatrical production to another” (Taylor, ODNB). She often found herself in contest with the proprietors of theatrical companies and theatre owners, in response to which she first began to write “tracts denouncing the selfishness of her more illustrious male colleagues and the philistinism of the metropolitan theatre owners.” In these pamphlets, among which she published “Theatric Revolution, or Plain Truth Addressed to Common Sense” and “A Pamphlet on the Difficulties and Dangers of a Theatrical Life”, Macauley characterizes the profession as one “full of horror” (Macauley, The Difficulties and Dangers, 1) and “immersed in difficulty,” claiming the career “requires every quality of mind and body, strengthened by the strictest perseverance, and the most unlimited industry – it is at best a life of slavery, even attended with all its pleasures” (2). In her writing Elizabeth often attributes these difficulties to money, lamenting the “heavy expense attached to it” (1) and “the losses its professors are liable to,” bitterly bemoaning the role money would play in the selection process for roles. Macauley claimed “to riches, [Theatre] Managers pay all due deference” (8) and accuses that, to those who were in control of casting actors, “public merit, or private worth, are matters of little import, Money, Money is every thing!” Having grown up poor, and ultimately unable to garner much wealth from her few performances, it is likely that the realities of how much of a role money and notoriety were to play within the acting sphere was very tough for her to maneuver and, ultimately, to accept.
Money was not the only cause for trouble in her acting career; Macauley’s interactions with the benefactors and managers of these theatres were also fraught with disagreements, and her responses to such instances were among the first motivating factors that inspired her to write and publish her pamphlets. She would often detail her struggles in, what she identified, as a profession which rendered her the undeserving victim of “the frequent tyranny and injustice of mangers, the insolence of those deputed to govern under them” (1). In her piece “Theatric Revolution, or Plain Truth Addressed to Common Sense”, Macauley detailed the power struggles she’d observed within the profession, claiming there to be “a decided struggle between power and justice” (Macauley, Theatric Revolution, 1) within the theatre. This tension between Macauley and those who she saw as unworthy to preside over the noble profession of acting was a common theme in her writing, wherein she often also called out her colleagues for being “guided by selfish views alone, each striving to be himself a sun, and distaining the petty stars around him” (11). Elizabeth would often even identify the institutions to which she referred, like in her Theatric Revolution when she writes “the best constructed vessel will steer out of her course, if she has not a skilful pilot at the help; at Drury Lane theatre there is not any pilot” (16). She does so again when she admonishes “the Gentlemen of the Committee” for guiding “the theatrical state with a feeble hand” accusing them of entering “upon what they did not understand; and, that have no succeeded in their efforts is rather a matter of regret, than absolute censure” (17). And she even identifies a Mr. Kean by name, an actor who worked for the same Drury Lane theatre, whose ignorance “of the necessary rules, regulations and abilities requisite to conduct the business of a theatre” has put “the whole theatrical community… in danger of being sacrificed to ignorance and imbecility on one side, arrogance and overruling vanity on the other.”
Speaking with such a brazenly theatrical and distinctive voice, Macauley eventually began to garner attention for her outspoken opinions and eventually moved to London in the 1820s where she began to preach “from the pulpit of a little ‘Jacobinical’ Chapel in Grub Street,” (Taylor, ODNB) wherein she put her theatrical talents to the role of a religious lecturer. She published “Lecture Addressed to her Congregation and Delivered in Lisle Street Chapel, Sunday Feb. 24th 1828” in which she claims “during the period of my theatrical career, the work of religion was secretly going on in my heart, though like the seed in the earth, it was hid from human eye” (Macauley, Lecture Addressed, 12) and writes “I again felt that I went into the world to advocate the cause of religion” (18) after “accumulated sorrow, sickness, misfortune, afflictions and trials in every shape” (16) during her time in the theatre. In her signature dramatic style, Macauley describes her entry into the church as one motivated by horrendous tribulation, writing “every hand seemed closed against me; and at last despairing of every hope from human air, in an hour of faith, as firm as ever Abraham felt, unknown to any one, I took to this chapel, relying on the mercies of God alone… and I have been sustained, as it should almost seem by a miracle. Without friends, without aid, without assistance, without means!” (19). Also from this church, Macauley began offering regular lectures in which she advertised herself to perform “Sacred, Moral and instructive Readings, interspersed with vocal and instrumental music” (20) “every alternate Thursday, during Lent.” At the same time, she also advertised “a class for improvement in Elocution, every Monday, from 11 till 4 o’clock… [for] Half a Guinea per month” as a lecture to be held on Sunday, March 23rd 1828.
Soon after she began to preach, Elizabeth Macauley became a supporter of the blossoming Owenist movement in London, potentially inspired by her frustration at being unable to transcend the social class she was born in. Owenism is the “socialist philosophy of 19th century social reformer Robert Owen” (Wikipedia) that emphasizes “economic self-help of the working class through mutual co-operation”, encouraging community and fair trade as ways to establish “utopian-socialist and democratic communities.” Macauley was attracted to the movement which was one that bolstered the working class and was rooted in the concept of moral economy, which “refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just material, lens.” By 1832, she was the manager of the largest labour exchange in London where “people bartered goods and services on the basis of the number of hours that was invested in them” (Wikipedia) and was quoted to consider herself ‘a good Co-operative woman” (Taylor, ODNB). It also heavily promoted gender equality, which was of particular interest to Macauley, who often wrote of her frustrations with the sexism within both her professional industry and the society in which she was raised. She wrote “Men need little to preserve them; the laws of honour (which however derogatory to humanity, however baneful to society, and however inimical to the public good) is yet the guardian of their rights; when man insults his fellow, he enters on a bold career, and feels assured, that he in the event must answer. But… a female… without a father, brother, husband to protect her… has no resource, but either tamely to submit without a murmur to injustice and tyranny, or firmly stepping forward, forget her function, and sacrifice her feelings to preserve her fame” (Difficulties and Dangers, 3). She lamented that it was commonly considered that “the principal virtues of woman, should be in the performance of domestic duties, and a timidity which shrinks from public retrospection” (4) yet often claimed herself to be not of a spirit “famed for tame submission to tyrannic sway” (3).
By “the month of October, 1834” (Macauley, Autobiographical Memoirs, 4) Macauley had begun work on her memoirs, but soon after that she ”was not only rendered unable to proceed with the publication of [her] memoirs, but was in the course of a few months sued in the Marchalsea Court for a trifling debt” of "a sum of money to the amount of £51" and, hoping to avoid incarceration “within the walls of a prison house, [she] became a voluntary prisoner” on May 24th 1835. Eventually she brought her case before the public, helped by a “Rev. W. J. Fox” (5) who posted about her situation in his “Monthly Repository” in April, and a “Mr. Fox”, as well as the “Editors of the ‘Satirist’, ‘Times’, and ‘National’ all of whom… advocated for [her] cause and extended the publication of [her] appeal through the medium of their papers.” Before she left incarceration, she was able to finally publish her memoirs funded by public subscriptions, and a few years after being released, during a lecture tour in York, Elizabeth Macauley passed away of a stroke in 1837.
Works Cited
Macauley, Elizabeth Wright. “A Pamphlet on the Difficulties and Dangers of a Theatrical Life.” Fortune and Blyth. Jan 1810.
Macauley, Elizabeth Wright. “Autobiographical Memoirs.” Charles Fox. 1835.
Macauley, Elizabeth Wright. “Lecture Addressed to Her Congregation and Delivered in Lisle Street Chapel, Sunday, Feb. ... 24th 1828: Stating the Motives of Her Present Undertaking and Printed for the ... Purpose of Aiding to Recover the Arrears of Expenses Incurred by Opening this Chapel for the Public Accommodation.” Jan 1828.
Macauley, Elizabeth Wright. “Theatric Revolution: Or Plain Truth Addressed to Common Sense.” 1819.
"Owenism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 Oct. 2021. Web. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021. en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Owenism&oldid=1050164063
Taylor, Barbara. "Macauley, Elizabeth Wright (1785?–1837), actress and socialist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 21 Sept. 2004. Web. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021. doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/53247
