Her first appearance on stage was at
Haymarket in 1755 She rose to become a principal actor in October 1756 when she was cast as Lady Pliant in
The Double Dealerat the
Drury Lane. The play's cast also included the stars
Hannah Pritchard and
Kitty Clive. She subsequently had affairs with an Irish MP, Needham, who left her a considerable estate, and
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne. The income from her estate and her stage work made her a wealthy woman. In April 1772, when
James Northcote saw her as Miss Notable in Cibber's ''The Lady's Last Stake'', he remarked to his brother Her wealth and popularity meant she influenced fashion. The press reported on her hair styles: her low hair in
The School for Scandal was praised for changing the fashion. Her performance as Kitty in "
High Life Below Stairs" put her in the foremost rank of comic actresses and made the mob cap she wore in the role fashionable. It was soon being referred to as the "Abington Cap" on stage and at hatters' shops across Ireland and England. It was as the last character in
Congreve's Love for Love that Sir
Joshua Reynolds painted the best-known of his half-dozen or more portraits of her (
illustration, left). In 1782 she left Drury Lane for
Covent Garden. After an absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared, quitting finally in 1799. ==Death==