Ada Swanborough in ‘I’m All There’

A carte-de-visite portrait of Ada Swanborough, incomparable actress of the 1860s and 1870s. After the retirement of her sister, Louisa – the whole family was theatrical – Ada became the star of the Strand Theatre.

Her later years were marred by ill health and she died on 12 December 1893 at 27 Brompton Square, West Kensington, leaving an estate valued at £379. The abstract of her will gives her real name as Marianne Ada Hannah Smith.

‘We regret to announce the death, at West Kensington, London, of the accomplished actress Miss Ada Swanborough, the lessee of the Strand Theatre, London. After a few performances at Brighton, she appear at the Strand Theatre in November, 1861, in a piee adapted from the French, called “Is it the King?” The young actress, then not quite sixteen years of age, became at once a favourite with the public, and was most highly spoken of by competent critics. Subsequently Miss Swanborough devoted herself entirely to what we may describe as the better class of burlesque, a kind practically unknown to the present generation of playgoers. In the then popular and successful productions at the Strand Theatre she held her own with such well-known members of her father’s companies as Mrs Bancroft, George Honey, Lydia Thompson, John Clarke, David James, and Tom Thorne. […] After she had bee on the stage about ten years her voice partly failed, and then she abandoned burlesque and turned her attention to comedy. […] Of late years, owing to her long and painful illnesses, the stage has seen little of the once gay and vivacious actress’ (Nottingham Evening Post, 15 December 1893).

Photographed by the Southwell Brothers of London.