‘Henry V.’ On Kean's death she retired from the stage. She lived respected, and died 20 Aug. 1880.
Like her husband, Mrs. Kean met with much opposition in her early career. In her later years she was recognised as an actress of high position. She was essentially womanly in her art. Early in her career, J. A. Heraud, in the ‘Athenæum,’ 16 April 1842, declared her the most gentle and effective representative of Mrs. Beverley on the stage. Her Lady Evelina was pure and noble as well as gentle. Viola, Constance, and Katharine were fine performances, and her Gertrude in ‘Hamlet’ was perfect. Of imagination in its highest sense she was deficient, but she had genuine humour and provocative mirth. Westland Marston declares that ‘in sympathetic emotion, as distinguished from stern and turbulent passion, no feminine artist of her time surpassed her; in suggestiveness of detail, no artist but one.’ Miss Helen Faucit writes: ‘She had in youth much beauty and fascination, and in riper age was handsome and intellectual. An admirable wife, she supported her husband through all difficulties, exercising over him a constant and affectionate vigilance that warded from him many shafts and disarmed much prejudice.’
[Personal recollections; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography, vol. iii. and new ser. vol. i.; Theatrical Times; Mrs. F. Baron Wilson's Our Actresses; Westland Marston's Recollections of our Recent Actors; Tallis's Magazine; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Clark Russell's Representative Actors; Cole's Life and Times of Charles Kean; Frances Ann Kemble's Recollections of a Girlhood; Stirling's Old Drury Lane; Wemyss's Theatrical Biography; Jefferson's Autobiography; Hist. of the Dublin Theatre; Macready's Reminiscences, by Pollock; Dibdin's Hist. of the Edinburgh Stage; Georgian Era; Era Almanack and newspaper, various years; Athenæum and Sunday Times, various years.]
KEAN, MICHAEL (d. 1823), miniature-painter and proprietor of the Derby china factory, was a native of Dublin, where he was a student in the academy, and gained the medal of the Society of Arts in 1779. He was originally intended for a sculptor, and was apprenticed to Edward Smith, a sculptor in Dublin, but he subsequently took to practising as a miniature-painter, and sometimes drew portraits in crayons. He came to London, where he practised with great success. He was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1780 and 1790. Four miniatures by him, including portraits of Lunardi the aeronaut and Colonel St. Leger, were in the Exhibition of Miniatures at South Kensington in 1865. Kean was taken into partnership by William Duesbury the younger [see under Duesbury, William], proprietor of the Derby china factory, and on Duesbury's death in 1796 married his widow. He helped to increase the reputation of the factory by his artistic skill, and is credited with having introduced a biscuit body of peculiar excellence. In 1811 Kean disposed of the factory to Robert Bloor, and retired to London, where he died in November 1823. He was a hot-tempered man, and was for many years separated from his wife. He left a son, who became a captain in the navy. Kean was captain of the sixth company of the old Derby volunteers.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Haslem's Old Derby China Factory; Pasquin's Artists of Ireland.]
KEANE, JOHN, first Lord Keane (1781–1844), lieutenant-general, born 6 Feb. 1781, was second of the three sons of John Keane (1757–1829) of Belmont, co. Waterford (who was made a baronet in 1801 and was M.P. for Bangor and Youghal until 1806), by his first wife, Sarah, daughter of Richard Kelly of Lismore in the same county. On 12 Nov. 1794 he was appointed captain in a new regiment just raised on the Beresford estates (124th foot?), which was broken up immediately afterwards, when Keane was put on half-pay. In November 1799 he was brought on full pay in the 44th foot, which he joined at Gibraltar and accompanied to Egypt, where he served as aide-de-camp to Lord Cavan [see Lambart, Richard Ford William, seventh Earl of Cavan]. Keane obtained a majority in the 60th royal Americans in May 1802, but continued on the staff in Egypt and Malta until 1803. On 20 Aug. 1803 he became lieutenant-colonel 13th foot, joined the regiment at Gibraltar early in 1804, returned home with it in 1805, and, after serving several years in Ireland, accompanied the regiment to Bermuda as junior lieutenant-colonel, and commanded it at the reduction of Martinique in 1809. He became a brevet-colonel 1 Jan. 1812, and the same year was transferred to the 5th or jäger battalion 60th foot. In April 1813 he joined Wellington's army, and was at the head of a brigade of the third division at Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, the Nive, Vic Bigorre, and Toulouse. He became a major-general 4 June 1814, was made K.C.B. 2 Jan. 1815, and received a gold cross with two clasps for Martinique, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, the Nive, and Toulouse. Keane, whom Gleig notices as ‘a young and dashing officer,’ was one of those selected for the expeditionary force proceeding from the Garonne to America, but remained unemployed (Wellington's
