MRS MAPPS—BONE=SETTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1941, Page 6

MRS MAPPS—BONE=SETTER

WOMAN OF POPULAR WONDER. The London “Daily Post” of December 22, 1737, published this notice: I Died last week, at her lodgings, near the Seven Dials, the much-talked of Mrs Mapps, the bone-setter, so miserably poor. that, the parish was obliged to bury her. Thus passed from the light of day a woman who for many years had been the object of popular wonder. The daughter of a country bone-set-ter, she had settled at Epsom where she soon became famous for her won-der-working cures —cures apparently effected more by boldness and personal strength than skill. She married a mercer's servant, but it seems to have been an unfortunate match, for in 1736 the Grub-Street Journal published the news that the husband of ’Mrs Mapps, the famous bone-setter at Epsom, had run away, taking with him one hundred guineas, and as much portable property as he could lay hands on. She seemed to be glad that one hundred guineas could rid her of her husband, and he certainly must have been a brave man to marry her, for if her portrait does her justice, a more ill-favoured, or a stronger-framed woman. it would have been difficult to find. Besides driving a profitable trade at home, she used to go to town once a week in a coach and four, and return again carrying the crutches of her patients as trophies. She held levees at the Grecian Coffee House, and here she successfully operated upon a niece of Sir Hans Sloane. This piece of luck —for so it really was — gave her much fame, and if it was known that she was to be in an audience, the theatre would be filled. She became the subject of a comedy, “The Female Bone-Setter.’ which had a successful run at Lincoln's Inn Theatre, and she would have died rich if she had not set up as a patron of the turf. She gave a ten-guinea plate to bo competed for at Epsom, and her enthusiasm won her the nickname of "the Duchess of Epsom." but she backed her fancy so recklessly that she died a pauper.