Ann Gilbert billed as Mrs. G. H. Gilbert was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 – American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress.

She was born Anne Jane Hartley at Rochdale

Rochdale

Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, England. At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 school connected with Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

, in the Haymarket, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer. Her first conspicuous appearance on stage was made as a dancer, in the Norwich theatrical circuit, England, in 1845. In 1846 she married George H. Gilbert (d. 1866), a performer in the theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 company of which she was a member. Together they filled many engagements in English theatres, moving to America in 1849.

Her first 15 years in America were spent in inland cities such as Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

, and Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

. Mrs Gilbert's first success in a speaking part was in 1857 as Wichavenda in John Brougham

John Brougham

John Brougham was an Irish-American actor and dramatist.-Biography:He was born at Dublin. His father was an amateur painter, and died young. His mother was the daughter of a Huguenot, whom political adversity had forced into exile. John was the eldest of three children...

's Po-ca-hon-tas

Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage

Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage is a two-act musical burlesque by John Brougham. It debuted in 1855 and became an instant hit...

.

One of the most brilliant and decisive successive successes of her professional life was gained at that theatre, when, on 5 August 1867, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Florence presented Robertson's

Thomas William Robertson

Thomas William Robertson , usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S...

 fine comedy of "Caste," for the first time in America. On leaving the Broadway she went to Daly's

Augustin Daly

John Augustin Daly was an American theatrical manager and playwright active in both the US and UK.-Biography:Daly was born in Plymouth, North Carolina and educated at Norfolk, Va...

 Fifth Avenue Theatre, which was opened, in Twenty-fourth Street, on the site of the subsequent Madison Square Theatre — demolished in 1908, — with Robertson's comedy of "Play." The cast included E. L. Davenport

Edward Loomis Davenport

Edward Loomis Davenport was an American actor.Born in Boston, he made his first appearance on the stage in Providence, Rhode Island in support of Junius Brutus Booth. Afterwards he went to England, where he supported Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt , William Charles Macready and others...

, George Holland

George Holland

George Holland was an English American stage actor, born in London, December 6, 1791. His father was a tradesman. The boy was first sent to preparatory schools in Lambeth, and afterward to a boarding-school. He did not prove a devoted student: he was more remarkable for his pranks than for his...

, William Davidge

William Pleater Davidge

William Pleater Davidge was an English comedian, who came to the United States in 1850 and became identified with the American Stage.-Biography:...

, J. L. Polk, Agnes Ethel

Agnes Ethel

Agnes Ethel was a Broadway actress of the late 19th century. She performed in New York City from 1868 - 1871.Her married name was Agnes Ethel Tracy...

, and George Clarke. Mrs. Gilbert played Mrs. Kinpeck. For many years she played opposite James Lewis

James Lewis (comedian)

James Lewis was an American comedian, born in Troy, N. Y., where he made his first stage appearance in 1858, playing Farmer Gammon in The Writing on the Wall. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was in the South, and narrowly escaped being detained there by the blockade. Subsequently he traveled...

 as his "wife", or playing old women's parts, in which she had no equal.

After Mr. Daly's death she came under Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....

's management and later became a member of Annie Russell

Annie Russell

Annie Ellen Russell was an English born American stage actress.-Early life:Russell was born on in Liverpool, England, of Irish parents, Joseph Russell and Jane Mount. She moved to Canada when she was a child. She made her first appearance on the stage at eight years old at the Montreal Academy of...

's company. On October 24, 1904, at the New Lyceum Theatre

Lyceum Theatre (New York)

The Lyceum Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 149 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.It has the distinction of being the oldest surviving Broadway venue , the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in New York City, and the first Broadway theatre ever to be granted landmark status...

, Mrs. Gilbert made her first appearance as a star, being then in the eighty-second year of her age, in a play, by Clyde Fitch

Clyde Fitch

Clyde Fitch was an American dramatist.-Biography:Born William Clyde Fitch at Elmira, New York, he wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, which varied from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas.As the only child to live to adulthood, his father, Captain William G...

, called "Granny" with a young Marie Doro

Marie Doro

Marie Doro was an American stage and film actress of the early silent film era.-Personal life:Marie Doro was born as Marie Katherine Steward in Duncannon, Pennsylvania and began her career as a theater actress under the management of Charles Frohman before progressing to motion pictures in 1915,...

 in one of her earliest roles. Her appearance in "Granny" was the beginning of the farewell season, and Granny was the last part she played. Her final appearance on the New York Stage occurred at the Lyceum Theatre, on November 12, 1904. She acted for fifty-four years (after five years as a dancer), and she remained in active employment to the last. Mrs Gilbert was uniquely respected and popular, both with audiences and behind the footlights. She performed last in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 on December 1, and died there on the following day from a brain hemorrhage.

See Mrs Gilbert's Stage Reminiscences (1901).