Sarah Bartley (1783–1850) was a British actress who began her career when she was 16. Biography Personal Bartley is generally stated to have been born in 1785. The anonymous author of the Biography of the British Stage (1824), who appears to have received his information at first hand, advances, however, 23 October 1783 as the day of her birth. In regard to the parentage and early education of Bartley the conflict of statements is hopeless. According to the account obviously supplied by herself or her husband to the authority previously given, her father was an actor named Williamson, belonging to a country company, and her mother was the daughter of General Dillon, of Galway. Walter Donaldson, who speaks with much apparent knowledge, states, on the contrary, that her first name was O'Shaughnessy, and that both her parents were Irish. The name of Smith was adopted after her mother's second marriage, in 1793, with an actor of that name belonging to the Salisbury company. Before this time Miss Williamson or O'Shaughnessy had appeared in Salisbury as Edward in Mrs. Inchbald's comedy, 'Every one has his Fault.' Career Her début in a serious character took place in Lancashire, probably in Liverpool, when she was sixteen years of age, as Joanna in Holcroft's 'Deserted Daughter.' A three years' experience under Stephen Kemble in Edinburgh disgusted her with the stage, from which she retired. Yielding to circumstances, however, she conquered her dislike, and solicited and obtained an engagement from Tate Wilkinson, the famous manager of the York circuit. Upon his death in 1803 she went to Birmingham and thence to Bath. She was here seen by the younger Harris, who engaged her for Covent Garden, at which house she appeared on 2 October 1805 as Lady Towneley in The Provoked Husband. Very reluctantly did she consent to make her début in comedy. To appease her, accordingly, she was allowed to recite Collins's 'Ode on the Passions.' Her success in this recitation, which was brought into fashion by Mrs. Siddons, consoled her for a lukewarm reception in Lady Towneley. The management, finding her engagement unprofitable in consequence of Mrs. Siddons enjoying a monopoly of the characters in which Miss Smith would be of service, sought vainly to get rid of her. In 1808–9 she played with signal success in Dublin, in which city she recited, for her benefit, a monologue written expressly for her by