Miss Patty Chapman
(1830-1912)
16 October 1862

Volume 9, page 265, sitting number 12,059.

[The actress Miss Patty Chapman is identified by her inked signature recto in the lower margin, and by a printed piece of paper pasted onto the album page.]

Miss Chapman appears on the 1861 census, living at 22 Conduit Street with her uncle and aunt, the actors Charles and Ellen Kean. At the time of the census, she gave her age as twenty-three (so, if this were true, she was born in or about 1838), her profession as 'Actress' and her place of birth as Marylebone.

By the time of the next census, in 1871, Charles Kean had died and his widow, Ellen, was living at 47 Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater, the street parallel to Porchester Terrace, where Silvy's studio was located until his retirement from photography in 1868. Living with Mrs Kean were her daughter, Mary, and her niece, Patty Chapman. Mrs Kean, who had quit the stage, gave as her professsion 'Private means.' Her niece wrote nothing in this column, and gave her age as thirty, now shaving three years off her real age. Mrs Kean had five servants to help her run the house; a housemaid, a palourmaid, a lady's maid, a cook and a butler.

According to Who's Who in the Theatre Miss Chapman died on 15 April 1912 at the age of 82, which would place her birth in 1830. A brief obituary appeared in The Stage (18 April 1912): 'The death occurred in London on Monday at 39, Carlton Mansions, Maida Vale, of the widow of the late Mr F. M. Paget, in her 83rd year. Mrs Paget, many years ago, had acted under the name of Patty Chapman. She was the niece of Mrs Charles Kean, and the adopted daughter of Charles Kean, under whose management she appeared at the old Princess's. She also accompanied the Keans on the tours to America and the Colonies.'

Her husband was the actor-manager known professionally as 'Mr F. M. Paget.' He had died in Maida Vale on 7 May 1911, aged 61.