Nancy Fish
Nancy Fish Barnum Callias D'Orengiani, Baroness (née Fish; 22 April 1850 – 23 June 1927) was an English socialite, daughter of a successful cotton miller and the second wife of P. T. Barnum, 40 years her senior. After the death of Barnum's first wife in 1873, they married the following year in both London and New York City. After his death in 1891, he left her a large annuity.
Four years later, after an accidental meeting in Egypt, Fish married Demetrius Callias Bey, an Ottoman diplomat, nobleman and businessman. Their marriage in New York City was sensationalised in the American press and ended in Callias' 1896 death.
Two years later, Fish entered a mutually beneficial business-like marriage with the Baron Lucien D'Alexandry D'Orengiani, a French nobleman. She lived out the rest of her life in Europe as a baroness and died in 1927. She was cremated and buried next to her third husband. A posthumous biography was published by The New Yorker magazine.
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]
Fish accompanied Barnum during his European tours and was in constant communication with him through writing.[2] It was rumoured that they were already in a relationship prior to the death of Barnum's first wife Charity on 19 November 1873.[2] 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.[2][6] They honeymooned at the Windsor Hotel in New York City.[2] 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][6] 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.[7] 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][6] On 4 July 1893, she unveiled the statue of her late husband at Seaside Park in Bridgeport.[4]
