We can name only three of these children, Henrietta (who became Mrs Kelfe and Mrs Egerton), her sister Caroline (who may or may not be the same as the actress known as Miss E. In the December of that year a benefit concert was given, starring Peg Woffington and Ned Shuter, for the ‘ Widow Jona and her five children.’ So another three children had either been born to Mr and Mrs Jona unless they were his children from a previous relationship. He was buried in the Novo or New Spanish and Portuguese Jewish burial ground in Mile End. These reports also tell us that Mr Jona died after a lingering illness. Jona, Master of Languages, and Prompter to the Opera. Lately died, at his House in Warwick-Lane, Mr. Mr Jona lived, with his family, in Little Warwick Street, Charing Cross, near to Charlton House and it was there that he died at the end of October 1756, his residence then being given in the newspaper announcements of his death as Warwick Lane. Rachel Therisa of Jijona, near Alicante, Spain by Francis Wheatley We know, however, that she was certainly in England towards the end of 1756 and Joseph Jona was resident in London in 1755. This source has her returning to England in 1758. Indeed, research from the Holst museum indicates that Rachael was born Rachel Therisa del Jijona, possibly a native of Bristol and also possibly spending her early years in Spain and, to somewhat corroborate this, at her burial Rachel is listed as the daughter of Joseph Jona, not his wife, although we must stress that the document we have viewed is a transcript and not an original. The truth is probably a little less adventurous then, and her father could be either a Mr Ambrosse or Mr Jona as she and the rest of her family use both surnames. Martin’s Street, Leicester Fields, Westminster. Henrietta herself though, in a letter written during 1769 to the actor Charles Macklin, gives her birth as 1743 in St. Gibraltar by Willem van der Hagen Government Art CollectionĪfter the death of their father, Mrs Rachael Ambrosse returned to London with her two young daughters, settling in the Westminster area where she married a Mr Joseph Jona, a language master and prompter at the Opera. The family seemed to favour the spelling Ambrosse for their surname away from the stage. The two Ambrose sisters, it states, were born in Gibraltar, the elder around the year 1739. It also records a rather fanciful beginning for them their father, a Portuguese Jewish gentleman, was attached to the British army in Gibraltar and was hung there as a spy in the early 1740s. The Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 does not record their first names (many documents from that time do not do so and it is difficult therefore to trace them), the eldest, the one who became Mrs Egerton and Kelfe being simply Miss Ambrose and her younger sister Miss E. The two Ambrose sisters were well known on the London and Dublin stages from the 1760s and for the next twenty years. Henrietta Ambrose by Francis Wheatley Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum Thinking it might shed more light on Hannah we looked into this woman’s life, and here present all the collated information we can find on her, together with some new details. One of the informants into her life was recorded as her god-daughter, a woman who was herself an actress, known by the various names of Miss Ambrose, Mrs Egerton and Mrs Kelfe.
It started at the end of our research into the 18th-century actress Hannah Norsa who we wrote about earlier.
This article started out as one such can! It sometimes happens when researching that you innocently follow a possible lead and end up opening a can of worms.
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