Editing Dorothea Jordan (section)

==Early life==
Dorothea Bland was born near Waterford City in Ireland on 22 November 1761,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Dorothea Jordan|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica Online|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothea-Jordan|access-date=3 May 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=[[Walter Jerrold#Family|Jerrold, Clare Armstrong Bridgman]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ivU_AAAAYAAJ&q=clare+armstrong+bridgman+jerrold+dorothea+jordan+birth+november|page=31|title=The Story of Dorothy Jordan|publisher=[[Brentano's]]|date=1914}}</ref> and was baptised at St Martin in the Fields, Middlesex on 5 December of that year.<ref name="Camp">[http://anthonyjcamp.com/page13.htm Anthony J. Camp: ''Ancestry of Mrs Jordan''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110108171834/http://anthonyjcamp.com/page13.htm |date=8 January 2011 }} [retrieved 4 December 2014].</ref> She was the third of six children born to Francis Bland (1736 – 2 January 1778, in [[Dover]]) and his mistress, Grace Phillips (c. 1740 – 1789 in [[Edinburgh]]). Her siblings were:
* [[George Bland (actor)|George Bland]] (c. 1758 – 1807 in [[Boston, Massachusetts]]; actor and singer)
* Hester Bland (baptised 2 March 1760 at St Anne Soho, Middlesex – buried at St David's, as of Trelethin, 8 March 1848)
* Lucy Bland (1763/64 – 1778 in Trelethin, St David's, 1778)
* Francis Bland ({{fl.|1813}}; a captain, unmarried and without issue)
* Nathaniel Phillips Bland (1766/67 – buried at St David's, Pembrokeshire, 3 June 1830).<ref name="Camp" />

Her paternal grandparents were Nathaniel Bland (1695/96, in [[Killarney]], County Kerry – 1760), [[Vicar General]] of [[Ardfert]] and [[Aghadoe]], and Judge of the [[Prerogative Court]] of Dublin, Ireland, and his second wife Lucy (née Heaton).<ref name ="Camp"/> The reports about Jordan's maternal ancestry are unproven; Grace Phillips has been described as the daughter of a Welsh clergyman, whose parish was at Trelethyn.<ref>[[Claire Tomalin]], ''Mrs Jordan's Profession'', p. 10.</ref>

Before April 1774, when she was age 13, Jordan's father, who worked as a stagehand, abandoned the family to marry an Irish actress. However, he continued to support the family by sending them meagre sums of money.<ref name ="Camp"/> This allowance was on the condition that the children would not use his last name.<ref name="odnb">{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-15119|title=Jordan, Dorothy [real name Dorothy Phillips] (1761–1816), actress {{!}} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/15119|access-date=24 October 2019|year=2004}}</ref> Jordan then adopted her mother's maiden name, Phillips.<ref name="odnb"/>