Mary Bulkley, née Wilford (1747/8 – 1792), known professionally as Mrs Bulkley, Miss Bulkley, and later Mrs Barresford, was an English eighteenth-century dancer and comedy stage actress. She performed at various theatres, especially Covent Garden Theatre, the Theatre Royal, Dublin, the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, the Theatre Royal Haymarket and Shrewsbury Theatre. She performed in all or most of the Shakespearean comedies, and in several tragedies, besides many contemporary comedy plays. She played the part of Hamlet at least twice. She was considered a beauty when young, and her talent was praised. She married George Bulkley and later Captain Ebenezer Barresford, and openly took several lovers. Her early career was successful, but later she was hissed on stage due to her extra-marital affairs, and she died in poverty.
Background
Mary Bulkley was born as Mary Wilford. Her father was Edward Wilford (d. 1789), an official and treasurer at the Covent Garden Theatre. Because her uncle by marriage John Rich owned the theatre, Mary grew up "in some comfort" in a theatrical environment. By the time she was nineteen or twenty years old, she was beautiful, but "could not sing". Hugh Kelly described her:
Blest with a person wholly without fault; Tho' polish'd, gay, and natural, though taught, See where that Wilford elegantly moves, Leads up the graces, and commands the loves. (Thespis II (1767))
In the same year, the following poem was anonymously dedicated to her in a newspaper:
How various are the shapes she wears
How lovely she's in all! Applauding multitudes she chears, Admirers hopeless fall. ... Yet (blessings on the pious care That rear's the tender frame) One here hath claim to all that share And Wilford is her name.
Marriages and affairs
On 9 (or 16) August 1767 at Chelsea, when she was about twenty years old, Mary Wilford married George Jackson Bulkley (1742–1784) in Haymarket. He was a Covent Garden orchestra violinist from Yorkshire. George Bulkley was "grateful" and "useful", but "dull." Mary had at least three children, all born during her affair with singer and comedy actor James William Dodd (c. 1740 – 1796). The first was Mary Elizabeth Bulkley (1768–1859), baptised on 9 November 1768 at St Paul Covent Garden. The second was George Wilford Bulkley (1769–1844), a Newbury and London solicitor. The third was William Fisher Bulkley (1771–1810), baptised 26 September 1771 at Bristol.
Following the affair with Dodd at the King Street Theatre, Bristol, in 1768, there was a scandal. Dodd's wife died after about a year, and public sympathy waned as a result. Nevertheless, Mary Bulkley went with Dodd to Dublin in 1774, but had poor reviews because "Some recent transactions had excited strong prejudices against them." This left Dodd and Mary without money, so for a while she went home to her husband. However she went to live again with Dodd, and worked successfully in 1779 with Tate Wilkinson, manager of the Yorkshire Circuit. In due course there was a scandal involving Bulkley's affairs when she went to live with harlequin John Banks in Scotland, and with actor John (or James) Brown Williamson (d. 1802) around 1782.
Having become a widow in 1784, Mary Bulkley married Captain Ebenezer Barresford on 22 July 1788, but by 1791 she was "drinking heavily." Her carriage, overturning on Edinburgh's North Bridge in 1785, caused "hurt," preventing her from performing the following night. That injury may also have contributed to the increase in her drinking. She became "old – sickly – and with a very red face." On 19 September 1792, at the age of forty-four, she died in "wretched pecuniary circumstances" in Dumfries, where she was buried in St Michael's churchyard, "not far from where Burns lies."
Career
Bulkley was a member of the Covent Garden theatre company between 1761 and 1780 or 1781, however her Covent Garden debut in 1758 at the age of ten years was as a dancer. She continued as a dancer there until 1765, when at around 18 years old she first performed as a comedy actress. In 1769 she was involved in a horsemanship display, assisting Mr Hyam who "would drink a glass of wine standing upright on two horses at full speed."