Fiddes was born in 1811 in the London area of
Bloomsbury. She was the daughter of an actor Mary (born Fraser) and a painter
John Cawse. Her elder sister
Mary Cawse was also an opera singer. Harriet and her elder sister Mary studied voice under Sir
George Smart. Through Smart they came to the attention of
Carl Maria von Weber, She was in a melodrama about Queen
Anne Boleyn, and in 1825 she sang
Fly Away, Dove in
The Hebrew Family at the Covent Garden theatre that became her own. She married John Fiddes in 1835.
Josephine Fiddes was born in 1839 and there was another child, Frederica, but the marriage failed and Fiddes emigrated to Australia in November 1852 during the years of the Gold Rush. She went on tours that took in California after one to Honolulu. She returned to Britain. Fiddes died at Frederica's home in
Halifax in 1889. ==References==