Emma's Theatre Career: A New Chronology

Thanks to the British Library's stellar newspaper archive, we have a new and much more accurate view of the 18-year career of EHB, on the public stage.

In broad strokes, it looks like this:

• In November of 1838, in Bristol, Emma debuts, as "Miss Floyd", as a vocalist. Presumably she is also studying piano, which went hand-in-hand, pedagogically speaking, with vocal training at the time. She is taken in hand by T. Machlin, a Bristol impresario, and operates under his tutelage and promotion until mid-1839.
• Some time in 1839 or 1840, T. Machlin hands Emma to T. Welsh, in London, where Emma moves with Ann Sophia and Tom (but not Margaret), and begins a (now we can call it) three-year articling to the famous English music master, with articles due to terminate in 1842. During this period (according to Emma), she is loaned to Pierre Erard as a piano demo dolly (whether in Erard's Paris workshop, as Emma claims, or in his London workshop, is to be determined).
• (In 1841, with Emma's articles coming to a close, Thomas goes to sea, where he will die that same year.)
• On or before April of 1843, Emma joins the Covent Garden company, where she will appear (as Miss Floyd) -- in London, and in the provinces, when the company tours -- in operas and burlettas, in named minor roles.
• On or before August of 1843, Emma moves from Covent Garden to the Princess's Theatre, where (as Miss Floyd), she will appear in several productions, in named minor roles, and receive notices, primarily for her looks and her voice.
• In early 1844, Emma moves from The Princess's to Sadlers Wells, to do Shakespeare (singing roles) briefly, and adopting the stage name of "Emma Harding", before moving to the Adelphi at the end of 1844, and from there to the Royal Surrey in 1854.

(To measure change, consider my hypotheses a year ago)

This confines Emma's asserted period in Paris to the period she is articled to Thomas Welsh (which should make tracking down some trace of that a bit easier), and it makes Emma's Philadelphia 1877 claim to have studied in Paris and Milan a very tight squeeze indeed, since both would have to be encompassed by the period of articling. And, finally, it calls into question her claim to have known Sir Michael Costa, at least in the Covent Garden context, since Emma was long gone from Covent Garden by the time Costa takes over there in 1847. But since Costa was conducting, in London, from 1830 on, there's no reason to believe she didn't run into him when she was part of the T. Welsh brigade.

On the whole, with documentation all the way along now, the evidentiary record validates -- or at least does not contradict -- any claims made by Emma about her early performative life. She left gaps, but, then, that's what Emma often did: elide what she chose, at any given time, not to foreground. Always the propagandist.