The Angel Inn the Anglo-Irish actress Dorothea Jordan (1761–1816), who became the mistress and companion of the future King William IV. Thornton was "a man with flair but with no eye for detail [and] little patience with learning lines, a habit which spread to members of his company." James Winston, in his "The Theatric Tourist" (1805), relates how, just before one performance at Andover, Thornton noticed someone in the audience holding a copy of that evening's play. Winston writes: "With such a potent evidence of their incorrectness, it was impossible to proceed..." Thornton announced that the performance was cancelled, owing to the troupe's
Dorothea Jordan co. Kerry, 1695/961760), Vicar General of Ardfert and Aghada, and Judge of the Prerogative Court of Dublin, Ireland, and his second wife Lucy (née Heaton). The reports about Dorothea's maternal ancestry are very sketchy, although it is generally stated that Grace Phillips was probably the daughter of a Welsh clergyman (who lived in the early 1750s in Bristol) but he has not been identified with certainty. Before April 1774, when she was 13, Dorothea's father, who worked as a stagehand, abandoned the family to marry an Irish actress. However, he continued to support the family by sending them meagre sums