Mr., afterwards Sir George Metham, with Mr. Calcraft, to whom she was believed to be married, at a subsequent date with West Digges, an actor, who married her, having
another wife living, and finally with Woodward, the actor, like like the record of her gambling uiil extravagance, may be read in her
'Apology' and elsewhere. During many
years she appeared at various theatres :
Covent Garden, 1763-9, Smock Alley, Dublin, 1760-1, Covent Garden, 1761-2. In 1764
she went to Scotland, and reappeared at
Covent Garden in 1764-70. With increasing age her attraction naturally diminished, and mental decay seems to have followed. In 1785 appeared in five volumes, to which a sixth was subsequently added, her 'Apology,' the materials for which, supplied by herself, are supposed to have been arranged and
transcribed by Alexander Bicknell, author of
a 'Life of Alexander the Great' [q. v.] A
benefit was arranged for her at Drury Lane on
24 May 1785. Mrs. Bellamy took no part in the perfomance of the piece ('Braganza'), but mumbled a few words to the audience in prose. She died 16 Feb. 1788. So far as can be judged, her position was below the
greatest actresses of her day. Her beauty and
social reputation stood her, however, in good
stead. She was small in stature, fair, with
blue eyes, and was, according to O'Keefe,
very beautiful. During her early life she was
thown into intimacy with Fox and many characters of highest mark. Her later years were burdened with suffering and debt. She describes herself on her reappearance in Dublin, when still little more than thirty, as
'a little dirty creature bent nearly double,
enfeebled by fatigue, her countenance tinged
with jaundice, and in every respect the reserve
of a person who could make the least
pretension to beauty.' A portion of her correspondence is preserved by Tate Wilkinson and others. It consists almost exclusively of applications for money, which was no sooner obtained than it was wasted. One or two letters lent by Mr. Stone, of Walditch,
Bridport, are now before us, written from
Berwick Street, Soho, They are wholly concerned with her pecuniary troubles. In one
she acknowledges the receipt of two guineas,
and says she needs twenty-five guineas again
to pay her debts. In a second she bids her
correspondent not to call, as she is going to
an officer's (sheriff's) house on her way to the
King's Bench, which was indeed a familiar
bourne. Her career has furnished a familiar
theme for writers on the stage, Dr. Doran is especially eloquent over the sadness of her
life; she was, in fact, less neglected than she
assumes herself to have been, and in 1785
she speaks of herself as having every prospect of being comfortably situated for life.
(Apology, vi. 111-12).
[An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy, late of Covent Garden Theatre, written by herself, 6 vols. 1785; Memoirs of George Anne Bellamy, by a Gentleman of Covent Garden Theatre, 1785; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Thespian Dictionary; Hitchcock's Irish Stage; Jackson's History of the Scottish stage; Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs of his own life, 4 vols. 1790,and Wandering Patentee, 4 vols. 1795; Chetwood's General History of the Stage, 1749.]
BELLAMY, RICHARD (1743–1800), Mus. Bac., one of the chief bass singers of his day, was appointed a gentleman of the Chapel Royal 28 March 1771, and a lay vicar of
Westminster Abbey 1 Jan. 1773. Bellamy married Miss Elizabeth Ludford, daughter of a Mr. Thomas Ludford, who died in 1776, leaving considerable property to his grandchidren. In 1777 Richard Bellamy became
a vicar choral of St. Paul's Cathedral, and
from 1793 to 1800 he was also almoner and
master of the choristers. In 1784 he was one of the principal basses at the Handel commemoration in Westminster Abbey. He gave up all his appointments in 1801, and died about the end of August 1813. Bellamy published a few sonatas, a collection of glees, and a Te Deum with orchestral accompaniment.
[Appendix to Bemrose's Chant Book (1882}; Grove's Dictionary. i. 211 a; Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 421; Burney's Account of the Handel Commemoration (1785).]
BELLAMY, THOMAS (1745–1800)
miscellaneous writer, was born at Kingston-on-Thames in 1745. Having served his apprenticeship to a hosier in Newgate Street,
he began business on his own account. Very early he showed a taste for verse-writing, some of the pieces in his 'Miscellanies' being
dated 1763. After carrying on business with
success for twenty years he became tired of
serving at the counter. So, relinquishing the
hosiery trade, he served as clerk in a bookseller's in Paternoster Row. 'But Bellamy,' says his biographer,' was not calculated for a subordinate position.' A disagreement arose
between him and his employer, and Bellamy
had to seek a livelihood elsewhere. In 1787 he started the 'General Magazine and Impartial Review,' which lived lor some months. Another venture was 'Bellamy's Picturesque Magazine and Literary Museum,' which contained engraved portraits of living persons, with some account of their lives; but the public gave little support to this undertaking.
