Elizabeth Ann Brinsley Sheridan née Linley (1754-1792), was the second of twelve children born to the composer Thomas Linley (1733-1795), and his wife Mary Johnson. A celebrated singer, she performed on stage from the age of 12, under the management of her father and gained an excellent reputation, fêted by actors and artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick. She refused many proposals of marriage, instead eloping to France with the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) in 1772. As they were both underage, the marriage was invalid, but the two returned to London and married officially a year later. They had one child together, Tom (1775-1819). They later separated as husband and wife, and Elizabeth began a relationship with Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798). She had a daughter, Mary, by him, but upon her death from tuberculosis in 1792, requested that Sheridan recognise Mary as his own child.