Teresa Furtado

A Woodburytype portrait of the actress Teresa Furtado (Mrs. John Clarke).

Born Teresa Elizabeth Furtado on 6 June 1845 at 19, Edward Street, Hampstead Road, London, her father was Charles Furtado, a London-born professor of music. She made her début on the stage at the New Royalty theatre on 8 February 1864 as ‘Mercury’ in Burnaud’s burlesque Ixion. Among characters of which she was afterwards the first representative were ‘Helen’ in the burlesque of the same name by Burnaud (1866), ‘Fantine’ and ‘Cosette’ in The Yellow Passport (1868), ‘Eve’ in an adaptation from Augier of the some name (1869), ‘Rose Fielding’ in The Willow Copse (1869), ‘Florence Bristowe’ in The Prompter’s Box (1870), ‘Esmeralda’ in Halliday’s Notre Dame (1871), ‘Hilda’ in Halliday’s play of the same name (1872) and ‘Mabel’ in (1872). She also appeared in London in W.S. Gilbert’s Harlequin Cock Robin (1867), as the ‘Marquise d’Epimay’ in Narcisse (Lyceum, 1868) and as ‘Mabel Vane’ in Masks and Faces (Olympic, 1869).

On 10 August 1873 she married the comedic character actor John Clarke (who died 20 February 1879, aged 49). She died on 9 August 1877 at 77, Mornington Street, Regent’s Park, London.

[Sources: Frederick Boase’s Modern English Biography (1892) and W.D. Adams’s Dictionary of the Drama (1904).]

She appears on the 1851 census as Theresa Furtado, aged 5, living at 70, Torrington Square, Bloomsbury, with her parents. Her father, Charles Furtado, gave his profession as ‘singing master.’

Photographed by Lock and Whitfield London.