Anne or Ann Ford, after 1762 Mrs. Philip Thicknesse, (22 February 1737 – 20 January 1824) was an 18th-century English musician and singer, famous in her time for a scandal that attended her struggle to perform in public.
Some aspects of Anne Ford's life are not atypical of talented and ambitious women in the traditional society of 18th-century England, but she gained more education than most. She had a knowledge of five foreign languages and played several fretted string instruments, including the lute-like English guitar and the viola da gamba. This gave her a chance to perform privately with others at home, but her father, Thomas Ford, refused to allow her to perform publicly. This became irksome to her in her early twenties, but her earliest attempts to appear in public were unsuccessful; her father went so far as to have her arrested twice to prevent her escaping his control. Eventually she made a successful escape, and held her first public subscription concert on March 18, 1760. She performed a series of subsequent concerts, including daily performances from Oct. 24 through Oct. 30 of that year, though her playing on the "masculine" viol da gamba, comparable to a modern cello, was considered a further point of controversy.
Ford gave a performance in 1761, 'English airs, accompanying herself on the musical glasses,' at Spring Gardens. She published Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses, comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich. These glasses were tuned with water, and preceded the 1762 armonica (Glass harmonica) produced by Marianne Davies.
Ford's situation was further complicated by an infatuated lover, the Earl of Jersey, who offered her £800 a year to be to his mistress. When she refused, Lord Jersey tried to sabotage her initial public concert, but she earned £15 from it nonetheless. In 1761 she published a pamphlet, A Letter from Miss F—d to a Person of Distinction, defending her position. This in turn provoked a pamphlet from the Earl, A Letter to Miss F—d. The brief pamphlet war between them differed in subject and tone from others conducted in that era.
On 27 September 1762, she became the third wife of Philip Thicknesse, so gaining greater social standing and acceptance.
She and her husband were travelling to Italy in 1792 when Thicknesse died suddenly in Boulogne and his wife was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. After the execution of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, she was released under a general pardon for all prisoners who could prove that they could earn their living; her profession stood her in good stead.
In 1800 Anne Ford published an autobiographical roman à clef entitled The School for Fashion, which included many public figures of the day in thin disguise. She herself featured as "Euterpe."
After two centuries, she is perhaps best remembered as the subject of one of Thomas Gainsborough's acknowledged masterpieces, painted in 1760 and later known as his "Portrait of Mrs. Philip Thicknesse, née Anne Ford." [1]
| Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Thicknesse, Ann. |