Amy Sheridan

A carte-de-visite portrait of English burlesque actress Amy Sheridan (1838-1878), seen here as she appeared in the role of Lady Godiva in 1872.

A review of 1864 mentions her appearing as Mars in Cupid and Psyche, a Christmas pantomime at the Olympic. In 1867 she appeared as Miss Sefton in Maud’s Peril at the Adelphi Theatre in London and at Christmas of the same year she was appearing as Robin Hood in the burlesque pantomime Babes in the Wood.

An advertisement in The Times (11 January 1872) mentions Amy Sheridan appearing as Lady Godiva at Astley’s Amphitheatre in London. The puff reads in part: ‘Tremendous success of the Pantomime of the Day. Triumph of Miss Amy Sheridan as Lady Godiva in her beautiful and chaste Impersonation.’

Amy Sheridan died in Brighton in 1878. On 14 November 1878, The Times carried a report of the inquest into the cause of her death. Apparently the post mortem revealed that ‘the heart was extensively diseased, and that one of the larger blood vessels had burst, causing an effusion of blood into the chest, which was the immediate cause of death.’ The report also mentions that her real name was Mrs Preston and that she was 30 at the time of her death.

Photographed by the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company.