Elizabeth Billington, one of England's finest singers, was born in 1768, probably in Soho, and according to a report at the time was said to have been the illegitimate daughter of Carl Weichsel, the principal oboist of the King's Theatre. She was instructed in her early musical education by her father, and with Schroeter. On 13 October 1783 she secretly married James Billington, the double-bass player at Drury Lane and shortly afterwards she went to Ireland and sang at Dublin and Waterford in the role of Eurydice. On her return she was offered an engagement at Covent Garden, where she had enormous success. She travelled to Paris to study with Sacchini, and returned for another season of operas and concerts at Covent Garden between 1786 and 1787. In 1794 she went to Italy, and through the help of the British Ambassador sang before the Royal Family, to great acclaim, and then in a new opera which Bianchi had written specially for her, 'Inez di Castro'. Such was her success that she stayed in Naples for sixteen months, before going to Florence, Milan, Venice and Trieste. It was while in Naples that her husband suddenly died in slightly mysterious circumstances, causing something of a scandal.

During her stay in Milan, where she was singing for the Empress Josephine in 1799, she met and married M. Felissent, and shortly after the marriage returned to London and agreed to appear at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane. She appeared at Covent Garden in October 1801 as Mandane in Arne's 'Artaxerxes', and during the next few years is said to have made an enormous fortune. She later had to give up her highly successful career due to ill health and retired to live in grand style in a villa in Fulham. In 1817 she was persuaded to return with her husband to St. Artien, the estate they had bought near Venice, but she died the following year.