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Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin

Irish actress (1771-1854)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ5363413
Source-derived summary

Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin (c. 1771–1854) was an Anglo-Irish stage actress active in Ireland and England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Life

Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin was the daughter of actor William Talbot Richards (d. 1813), who at the time of her birth in Dublin had been engaged with her mother at the Crow Street Theatre. Her mother's name and fate is unknown; when Edwin was around eight her father married twenty-one-year-old Sarah Edmonds in London.

At Crow Street Theatre, when eight years old, she appeared in Prince Arthur and other juvenile characters, including a part written specially for her by O'Keefe in his lost and forgotten farce, The Female Club. She also, for her benefit, played Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp, an abridged version of Bickerstaffe's Love in the City. She left the stage for a time to be educated. After playing in the country she appeared at Covent Garden Theatre 13 November 1789, as Miss Richards from Margate, in The Citizen of Arthur Murphy.

The following year she joined at Hull the company of Tate Wilkinson, playing with great success in comedy. In the line of parts taken by Mrs.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin” as irish actress (1771-1854). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Elizabeth, Rebecca and Edwin.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1771, 1854, 1813, 1789—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1771. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Elizabeth, Rebecca and Edwin providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin”, the useful work is to connect “irish actress (1771-1854)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5363413. VIAF identifies the subject as 83572384. The Library of Congress control number is no2009035641. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1771, 1854, 1813 and 1789.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin primary sources, Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin archive and Elizabeth research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.