Nancy Fish

Nancy Fish was born in Blackburn, Lancashire on 22 April 1850 to Martha (née Shaw) and John Fish, a Manchester cotton mill owner.[1][2] John Fish credited his own business success to reading the autobiography of the successful businessman P. T. Barnum.[3] In 1858, her father met Barnum at a lecture at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and thanked him for the inspiration he had provided.[4] The two subsequently became close friends; John Fish named a pair of his engines "Barnum" and "Charity" (after Barnum's wife) and threw a party for General Tom Thumb when he was exhibiting in England; Barnum dedicated a chapter of his autobiography to John Fish.[5] Due to her father's business success, by 1871 Nancy Fish and her family had moved to a large house in the relatively upmarket North Meols, near Southport, Lancashire.[2] Around this time, Fish began writing letters to Barnum.[2]

P. T. Barnum, pictured in 1885, was Fish's first husband.

Fish accompanied Barnum during his European tours and was in constant communication with him through writing.[6] It was rumoured that they were already in a relationship prior to the death of Barnum's first wife Charity on 19 November 1873.[6] Indeed, upon hearing of Charity's death, Barnum travelled to Southport to be with Fish and her father John, and did not attend his wife's funeral.[2] Fish married Barnum twice in 1874, at the Strand in London on 14 February and then at a Greek Orthodox church in New York City on 15 September in front of a large crowd.[6][7] They honeymooned at the Windsor Hotel in New York City.[6] She was 40 years his junior and described in the American press as "a young pretty Lancashire lass".[2]

The marriage was reported to be a happy one, with Barnum's children from his first marriage being devoted to their new stepmother, despite their similar ages.[2][7] Together the couple planned, built and furnished a new house in Bridgeport, Connecticut called Marina.[2] Barnum died on 7 April 1891, leaving his widow $100,000, their home Marina, and an annuity of $40,000.[6][8] The large size of the legacy displeased Barnum's children.[4] As a widow, she applied for and received an American passport and travelled Europe before returning to the United States.[4][7] On 4 July 1893, she unveiled the statue of her late husband at Seaside Park in Bridgeport.[4]

Fish does not appear as a character in the 2017 Barnum-inspired musical film The Greatest Showman, despite in reality being his wife during some of the film's events.[9]

In 1894, Fish visited Egypt where she was presented with a mummy that was being donated to the Scientific Society in Bridgeport.[4] It was on this trip that she met Demetrius Callias Bey, an Ottoman diplomat, nobleman and olive industry businessman of Greek descent.[4] They had supposedly met when she fell from the Great Pyramid and was caught by Callias.[3][5][6] The same year, she put Marina on the market and left Connecticut.[4]

Fish married Callias on 8 August 1895 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in New York City, and only a few close friends knew of the ceremony.[3][7][8][10] After their wedding ceremony they sailed to Paris and travelled Europe before arriving at Callias's estates on the island of Melita.[8] Fish soon learned that Callias, who spoke little English,[7] had exaggerated his wealth and, upon her return to New York City in March 1896, there were rumours that the couple would separate.[8] However, this was denied by her close relatives.[8] Callias died of liver failure on 22 September 1896 while Fish was in the United States, after which she sailed to Europe and never returned.[3][11]

After the death of her second husband, Fish moved to Paris where she lived in an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe.[4] In 1898, she married a French nobleman, Lucien Hyppolyte Ferdinand Marie, Baron d’Alexandry d’Orengiani.[1][4] The marriage was mutually beneficial and business-like, the baron was able to clear his debts with some of Fish's money, and Fish gained the title of baroness and societal connections.[3] As a baroness Fish kept residences in Paris, Aix-les-Bains and Menton. She socialised with American expatriates, French nobility, members of P. T. Barnum's family, and European royals including Empress Eugénie.[4] Her French husband died in 1919, by which point he and Fish were living separately, however this did not stop her from being the lead mourner at his funeral.[4]

Fish died in Paris on 23 June 1927, possibly due to complications from a series of strokes she suffered eighteen months earlier.[1][4] News of her death was telegraphed to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and reported in the New York Times.[12] She was cremated and then buried next to her second husband in the English Square of Grand Jas cemetery in Cannes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.[3][4][6][13]

A posthumous biography was published in The New Yorker magazine in April 1936.[14]