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CATHERINE [KITTY] CLIVE (1711-1785)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 532 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CATHERINE [KITTY] CLIVE (1711-1785)  ,
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British actress, was born, probably in
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London, in 1711 . Her
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father, William Raftor, an Irishman of good
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family but small means, had held a captain's commission in the French army under Louis XIV . From her earliest years she showed a talent for the stage, and about 1728 became a member of the
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company at Drury Lane, of which Colley Cibber was then manager . Her first
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part was that of the page Ismenes (" with a
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song ") in the tragedy Milhridates . Shortly afterwards she married George Clive, a
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barrister and a relative of the 1st Lord Clive, but
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husband and wife soon separated by mutual consent . In 1731 she definitely established her reputation as a comic actress and singer in Charles Coffey's
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farce-opera adaptation, The Devil to Pay, and from this time she was always a popular favourite . She acted little outside Drury Lane, where in 1747 she became one of the
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original members of Garrick's company . She took part, however, in some of the oratorios of Handel, whose friend she was . In 1769, having been a member of Garrick's company for twenty-two years, she quitted the stage, and lived for sixteen years in retirement at a
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villa at
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Twickenham, which had been given her some time previously by her friend Horace Walpole . Mrs Clive had small claim to good looks, but as an actress of broad
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comedy she was unreservedly praised by Goldsmith, Johnson and Garrick . She had a
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quick temper, which on various occasions involved her in quarrels, and at times sorely tried the
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patience of Garrick, but her private
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life remained above suspicion, and she regularly supported her father and his family . She died at Twickenham on the 6th of December 1785 .

Horace Walpole placed in his

garden an urn to her memory, bearing an inscription, of which the last two lines run: " The comic muse with her retired And
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shed a
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tear when she expired." See Percy Fitzgerald, Life of Mrs Catherine Clive (1888) ; W . R . Chetwood, General
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History of the Stage (1749); Thomas Davies,
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Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick (1784) .

End of Article: CATHERINE [KITTY] CLIVE (1711-1785)
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BARON ROBERT CLIVE CLIVE (1725-1774)

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