Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Linley, Mary
LINLEY, MARY, afterwards Mrs. Tickell (1758–1787), vocalist, the second daughter of Thomas Linley the elder [q. v.], musician, was born in Bath 4 Jan. 1758. In 1771 she appeared at the Three Choirs Musical Festival at Hereford, and in 1772 at Gloucester, with her more celebrated sister Elizabeth Ann, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan [q. v.] On the retirement of Mrs. Sheridan, Mary Linley filled her place in oratorio and concert room. On 25 July 1780 she married Richard Tickell, pamphleteer and commissioner of stamps. She died at Clifton on 27 July 1787, leaving two sons and a daughter, and was buried in Wells Cathedral.
Mrs. Sheridan was passionately attached to this sister, and on her death in 1788 wrote some pathetic verses, which are quoted by Moore (Life of R. B. Sheridan, pp. 392–6). Moore also gives some letters written from Bath by Mary Linley upon the production there of the ‘Rivals’ in 1775.
Gainsborough painted Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Tickell together, the original picture being at present in the Dulwich College Gallery. A miniature by Cosway, after a sketch of Mrs. Tickell taken shortly before her death, while asleep (see Moore, Sheridan, p. 390), by a Bristol artist, is in the possession of Lumsden Propert, esq., M.D.; another miniature, by Gainsborough, belongs to C. E. Lees, esq.
[Annals of the Three Choirs, pp. 48, 49; Brayley's Surrey, iii. 242; Gent. Mag. 1787, pt. ii. p. 741.]